The Phoenix Endangered (36 page)

There was a renewed exodus of people heading northward. Whether it was because rumors of the true reason for Caldab and Garam’s unexplained absence had spread, or because the fact that the Consul continued to prepare for misfortune had caused those who were undecided about leaving to make up their minds, or whether Tiercel’s quiet persistence in insisting that people should leave the city while they could convinced people, it wasn’t really possible to tell. From the very beginning, Tiercel had done his best to persuade everyone he spoke to that leaving the city would be the best course of action. In the sennights he’d spent searching Tarnatha’Iteru for any information that might reveal the location of the Lake of Fire, he’d made the acquaintance of a very large number of people, and he drew upon that familiarity now, urging everyone he knew even slightly to leave while there was still time. But without having hard facts to present—which he couldn’t do—it was difficult to convince people to leave who weren’t of a mind to leave anyway. And the more time that passed without anything happening, the harder it was to convince people that there was any real danger at all. To leave the city, for nearly everyone who lived here, meant to abandon everything they owned, and few people were willing to do that except if they were panicking, or if the threat was actually in sight. There were very few who were willing to do something that would cost them so much on the basis of warnings they considered vague. If the army had not come yet—so the common wisdom ran—perhaps it would not come at all. And the city walls were high.

But some
did
heed the warnings, and just as before, the Consul did not hinder anyone who wished to leave the city, though now anyone wishing to leave had to depart at the times customarily assigned to such departures: between two hours after sunrise, when the city gates were unbarred for
the day, and one hour before sunset, when the gates were barred for the night. The Telchi told Harrier and Tiercel that he suspected that the Consul had sent more scouts out to see the location and disposition of the enemy army, since by now he must be nearly certain it existed. But if he had, all of them were fairly certain that the scouts hadn’t reported back—though none of them had any definite information. There were dozens of different stories making the rounds of the city, none of which made very much sense. Consul Aldarnas had taken to appearing on the balcony of his Palace twice a day, just so that anyone who cared to could see that he had not fled to safety. Even though there was no enemy anywhere in sight, without rationing and fixed prices, half the people in the city would have starved a fortnight ago—anything in the markets that didn’t have a price fixed by the Consul was either completely unavailable, or selling for ten times what it had gone for a moonturn ago.

And despite this—despite the fact that the city lived under constantly increasing fear—nearly three-quarters of the inhabitants firmly refused to leave. Tiercel wasn’t sure that even the Consul could order them all to leave, and Harrier said there weren’t enough men in the City Watch—even if you counted in the Caravan Guards and the new Militia for good measure—to force them to. And it didn’t matter one way or the other, really, Harrier added, because there weren’t enough supplies, even if they stripped the entire city, to get them all to Akazidas’Iteru safely, because in the north Windrack was a cool month—early spring—but here in the Madiran, it was already brutally hot. Some of the people in Tarnatha’Iteru could still leave—but not all of them.

And in a few moonturns, Tiercel realized, it would be an entire year since he’d left home.

Meanwhile, Harrier continued to try to convince Tiercel to rouse Ancaladar from hibernation. He’d agreed that probably bringing Ancaladar to the city wouldn’t be a good idea, but he didn’t see why Tiercel shouldn’t wake Ancaladar up and just
hide
him somewhere. Tiercel hadn’t
even bothered to point out that
hiding
someone about the size of one of those heavy warships Harrier’s Da didn’t keep around the Port would be difficult at the best of times, much less with Ancaladar waking up hungry and needing to hunt. He didn’t want to think about the fact that what Harrier kept referring to with ghoulish good humor as “the Darkspawn army” was probably something that might actually be capable of hurting Ancaladar, and that they didn’t really know where it was. For all they knew, it had decided to bypass Tarnatha’Iteru completely and head straight for Akazidas’Iteru.

One of the things the three of them had discussed in one of their private councils of war was going to the Consul and revealing who they were—or who Tiercel and Harrier were, anyway. Harrier could prove he was a Wildmage simply by showing that he held the Three Books, if he had to—and Tiercel knew enough spells to impress most people. They hadn’t suggested the idea because they thought it was a good one, but simply because every idea had to be suggested.

The Telchi had hesitated for a long moment, regarding them both somberly.

“Did I think that it would be… entirely useful… I would say that this would be a thing worth doing,” he said at last. “Harrier’s skills would be of great worth did he have the support of the Consul behind him, so that his advice could be followed. And you, Tiercel. Your power is great, and if you did not have to work in secret, perhaps there would be less apprehension among the people.”

“But?” Harrier said.

“But there would be a great temptation, I think, either to ask of you what you could not do, or to blame you for that which is not of your doing.”

“H
E THINKS
C
ONSUL
Aldarnas would blame us for the existence of the people who are destroying the
Iteru
-cities?” Tiercel asked later.

“Well, once you finished explaining to him about how they were all Dark-tainted, and about your visions of the Lake of Fire,
yes,”
Harrier said. “Now tell me that explanation wouldn’t come into things somewhere along the way.”

Tiercel didn’t answer, mostly because he couldn’t imagine any explanation of their presence in the city—and his abilities—that
didn’t
involve his visions and the rebirth of the Endarkened. And Harrier and the Telchi were right: he really couldn’t see that going over well. “What do you think he’d do?” Tiercel asked.

“Depends on how fast you could get Ancaladar here. So why don’t we just skip the whole thing?” Harrier said. “And why don’t you come up with a nice plan that
doesn’t
involve us having to explain anything to the Consul—or me actually having to turn the Militia into anything like an army?”

Tiercel picked up the nearest object—a pillow—and tossed it at Harrier, who caught it easily. At least—based on the maps Tiercel had studied, and all of their best guesses at the size of the enemy army—they had at least another fortnight to get as many people as possible to leave the city and to try to come up with a definite idea of how to defend it. And at least they’d have a little warning when the enemy approached.

B
UT THEY WOULD
have had no advance notice at all if not for the flocks that sheltered within sight of the city walls by night, for when the Isvaieni army approached Tarnatha’Iteru, it did not beat drums to announce itself. And it came by night, not by day.

The first indication Tiercel had that anything was happening was when he found himself being roughly shaken awake from a sound sleep.

“Get up,” Harrier said urgently. “Get dressed.” Tiercel barely managed to get his eyes open, but the sight of Harrier in full armor, wearing swords crossed on
his back, jolted him fully awake. He knew that the Telchi had given Harrier his own set of swords recently, but he’d never seen Harrier actually
wear
them. In the distance—now that he was awake—he could hear the sound of horns blowing—the same horns that blew at dawn and sunset when the city gates were opened for the day and closed for the last time. But it was the middle of the night.

“They’re here,” Harrier said as Tiercel scrambled into his clothes. “Ten minutes ago Caldab heard the flock guards barking—all of them at once. He ordered the torches lit along the wall, and the herders ran out and lit the northern emergency beacons that we set up. The army’s a couple of miles out.”

“Come on,” Tiercel said.

The two of them shoved their way through the crowds milling about on the streets. From the snatches of conversation Tiercel overheard, no one was quite certain of what was going on. Some thought it was a fire, others that they were being warned of the approach of a Sandwind. A few moments later, the horns fell silent, and the silence seemed as ominous as the sound had. Soon he saw Militia members, easily distinguished by their green armbands and green sashes, going along the streets ordering people to go back inside. Some of them did as they were told, some of them argued.

When Tiercel and Harrier arrived at the South Gate, a work party was already bringing wagons full of bricks to block it. Not the small three-wheeled carts that Tiercel was used to seeing, but full-sized wagons that took a dozen men to shift.

“The gate’s been barred, and it opens in anyway,” Harrier said as they climbed the staircase. “Once the cart’s in place, they’ll pull the axel-pins. The East and West Gates are being blocked the same way. Nobody’s going to be able to open them.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little…?” Tiercel began, but Harrier simply pointed toward the wall. The top of the wall could only be reached by steep narrow staircases that
ran beside the gates. Access to the steps was guarded by several men, some of whom wore Militia green, others of whom wore the familiar armor of the City Guards. They allowed Tiercel and Harrier to pass without challenge, though several of them gave Tiercel questioning looks.

The steps were narrow and worn with age, since the steps over the lesser gates were rarely used, and consequently not kept in good repair. When Tiercel got to the top, he glanced back across the city. Parts of it were still dark, but most of it was brightly lit, and the Consul’s Palace was ablaze with light. This was the first time he’d actually been up on the city walls, and he was surprised at how far he could see.

Harrier tugged at his sleeve, and he turned away from the city and walked toward the edge of the wall. There were several Guardsmen standing there, gazing out into the darkness, and to Tiercel’s faint surprise, the Telchi was there with them. They moved aside as Tiercel and Harrier approached, making room for them, and Tiercel got his first sight of the enemy.

“Don’t you think that’s a little stupid?”
he’d been about to say to Harrier before they’d come up here, meaning the idea of blocking every exit from the city but one. But now, looking out over the plain below, he understood. The walls were their only defense, and they would only be a defense as long as the gates could be kept closed. The City Guards could be trusted to follow orders where City Militia could not, so for all their sakes, having only one set of gates to defend against panicked citizens was probably one of the smartest choices anyone could make. He wondered if the decision had been Harrier’s.

He stared out at the approaching enemy. Harrier had said that the presence of the enemy had only been discovered by the barking of the dogs. In that case, they must have approached in total darkness, but now that they’d been discovered, there was no more need for concealment. Torches sparkled among their ranks. Between the torches they carried, and the row of warning beacons burning on
the ground about a mile away, Tiercel could see them clearly.

They were mounted on
shotors.
The animals moved forward at a slow walk. They didn’t advance in columns, nor did they beat drums and shout, as the refugees from Laganda’Iteru had said they did. There were far too many of them to count—so many that the line of silent marchers stretched so far into the distance that the flames of their torches were barely visible sparks.

“It is very odd,” the Telchi said quietly. “I see Adanate Isvaieni, and Lanzanur, and Fadaryama, and Hinturi, and Kadyastar all here together. Yet the tribes do not band together for any reason. And many of those tribes do not approach the
Iteru
-cities at all.”

“We cannot possibly hold the city,” Harrier said.

He didn’t sound either happy or upset about it, Tiercel realized. He sounded as if he was stating a fact that was so obvious that there was no point in having feelings about it. “
The sun is going to rise today,”
or “
it’s raining and you’re going to get wet if you go outside,”
or “
if you drop that dish it’s going to break.”

“We cannot possibly hold the city.”

When Tiercel stopped staring out at the approaching army, awareness of the world around him rushed in like the ocean rushing in at high tide. He could hear the shouts and screams from the streets below as the city awoke to its peril; feel the rising wind that told him—after so many moonturns spent on the road—that it was an hour or so before dawn.

“I need to go out and talk to them,” Tiercel said, turning away from the wall.

Harrier grabbed for him and he dodged, evading his friend’s lunge with years of practice. The fastest way to the only gate that still opened was along the top of the wall. Tiercel ran.

The top of the city wall was as wide as the widest city street below, and the guards along the top of the wall were gathered near the outer edge, hands braced on the low wall
that edged the top, peering out into the darkness. There was plenty of room for Tiercel to run, and he did. He could hear Harrier’s footsteps pounding along behind him, but he’d always been faster than Harrier was, even now. Harrier was gaining on him, but he hadn’t caught up.

The steps down to the ground from the North Gate were wider than the others, wide enough to take at a run. There were City Guards standing around at the bottom, and Tiercel was moving too fast to dodge all of them. A couple of them grabbed him—startled and worried and frightened—and by then Harrier had jumped down the last five steps and pounced on him.