They responded by trying to swamp the Limper, which they managed with some
success, fifteen or twenty piling on and keeping him pinned by sheer body
weight. The Lieutenant shifted the fire of the engines temporarily, pounded that
seething pile till it broke up and the Limper regained his feet.
That ploy having failed, a band of the creatures clotted up and tried to break
out to the west. I don't know whether they planned to escape entirely or meant
to swing around and strike from behind. The dozen who made it through
encountered Whisper, and a heavy fall of the melting dust. The dust killed a
half-dozen workers for every castle creature, but it stopped the charge. Only
five creatures survived it.
Those five immediately encountered the portal from elsewhere that expelled the
cold breath of the infinite. They all perished.
Whisper, meantime, was scrambling for altitude. A drum-roll procession of bangs
pursued her up the sky. She was a better flyer than Journey, but even so could
not evade injury. Down she came, eventually touching down beyond
The fortress.
Within the castle itself creatures were out with the cats-o'-nine-tails,
extinguishing the fires started by Whisper and the Limper. The structure had
begun to look pathetic, so much of its substance had been consumed. Gone was the
dark, dreadful grace of weeks before. It was one big, dark, glassy lump, and it
seemed impossible that creatures could survive inside it, yet they did, and
continued the fight. A handful came out on the ramp and did something which
gnawed black chunks out of the Lieutenant's conflagration. All the creatures on
the slope ran for home, not a one forgetting to scoop up at least one body.
The ice door opened again, its breath dumping on the steps. The fires died
instantly. A score of the creatures died too, hammered to powder by the
Lieutenant's missiles. The things inside took a tack I had anticipated fearfully
since I had seen Feather crash. They turned their booming spell on the slope.
If it wasn't the thing that had pursued the Lieutenant, Elmo, One-Eye and me
that day, it was a close cousin. There wasn't much flash or smoke when they used
it on the slope, but huge holes appeared, often with bloody pulp smashed into
their bottoms.
All this happened so swiftly, so dramatically, that nobody really had time to
think. I don't doubt that even the Company would have run had events been
stretched out enough to allow thinking time. As it was, in their confusion, the
men had a chance only to pursue roles for which they had been preparing since
reaching Juniper. They stood their ground and, too often, died.
The Limper scampered around the slope like an insane chicken, cackling and
hunting creatures who hadn't died on the steps. There were a score of those,
most surrounded by angry soldiers. Some of the creatures were slain by their own
side, for those knots made tempting targets for the booming spell.
Teams of creatures appeared on the ramparts, assembling devices like the one
we'd seen them try to use before. This time there was no Taken above to drop and
give them hell.
Not till fool Journey came rushing past the hospital, looking cruelly battered,
and stole the Limper's carpet.
It had been my notion that one Taken could not use another's vehicle. Not so,
apparently, for Journey got the thing aloft and dove upon the castle again,
dumping dust and another fire egg. The castle knocked him down again, and
despite the tumult, I heard the Limper howling and cursing him for it.
Ever see how a child draws a straight line? None too straight. Something as
shaky as a child's hand scribbled a wobbly line from Duretile to the black
castle. It hung against the night like an improbable clothesline, wriggling, of
indeterminate color, irridescent. Its tip threw sparks off the obsidian
material, like the meeting of flint and steel magnified ten thousand times,
generating an actinic glare too intense to view directly. The entire slope was
bathed in wild bluish light.
I put aside my instruments and stepped out to better observe, for down in my gut
I knew the Lady anchored the nether end of that scrawl, having entered the lists
for the first time. She was the big one, the most powerful, and if the castle
could be reduced at all, hers was the might that would do it.
The Lieutenant must have been distracted. For a few seconds his fires dwindled.
A half-dozen castle creatures went up the steps, dragging two and three corpses
apiece. A rush of their compatriots came out to meet the Limper, who was in hot
pursuit. My guess is they got twelve bodies inside. Some might not have lost the
spark of life entirely.
Chunks flew from the castle where the Lady's line touched, each blazing with
that brilliant light. Thin cracks, in crimson, appeared against the black,
spreading slowly. The creatures assembling the devices retreated, were replaced
by others trying to lessen the effects of the Lady's attack. They had no luck.
Several were knocked down by missiles from the Lieutenant's batteries.
The Limper reached the head of the stairs and stood limned against the glow of a
section of castle still afire, sword raised high. A giant runt, if you will
pardon the contradiction. He is a tiny thing, yet stood huge at that moment. He
bellowed, “Follow me!” and charged down the ramp.
To my everlasting amazement, men followed him. Hundreds of men. I saw Elmo and
the remnants of his company go roaring up, across, and disappear. Even scores of
gutsy citizens decided to take part.
Part of the story of Marron Shed had come out recently, without names or such,
but with heavy emphasis on how much wealth he and Raven had garnered. Obviously,
the story had been planted against this moment, when a storm of manpower would
be needed to subdue the castle. In ensuing minutes the call of wealth led many a
man from the Buskin up those steps.
Down on the far side of the castle Whisper reached One-Eye's camp. One-Eye and
his men, of course, had stood to arms, but had taken part in nothing yet. His
mine operation had stalled once he was certain there was no way to get around or
to breech the substance of the castle.
Whisper brought one of those eggs of fire, planted it against the obsidian
exposed by One-Eye's mine. She set it off and let it gnaw at the fortress's
underbelly.
That, I learned later, had been in the plan for some time. She had done some
fancy flying to bring her crippled carpet down near One-Eye so she could carry
it out.
Seeing the men pour into the castle, seeing the walls abandoned and being broken
up by the Lady, seeing fires burning unchecked, I decided the battle was ours
and was all over but the crying. I went back into the hospital and resumed
cutting and stitching, setting and just plain shaking my head over men for whom
there was nothing I could do. I wished One-Eye weren't on the far side of the
ridge. He'd always been my principal assistant, and I missed him. While I could
not denigrate Pockets' skill, he did not have One-Eye's talent. Often there was
a man beyond my help who could be saved with a little magic.
A whoop and howl told me Journey was back, home from his latest crash and
rushing his enemies once more. And not far behind him came those elements of the
Company which had been stationed in the Buskin. The Lieutenant met Candy and
prevented him from rushing over the ramp. Instead, he manned the perimeter and
began rounding up those laborers who could be found still close to the action.
He started putting things back together.
The bam! weapon had continued pounding away all along. Now it began to falter.
The Lieutenant loudly cursed the fact that there were no carpets to drop fire
eggs.
There was one. The Lady's. And I was sure she knew the situation. But she did
not abandon her rope of irridescent light. She must have felt it to be more
important.
Down in the mine the fire gnawed through the bottom of the fortress. A hole
slowly expanded. One-Eye says there is very little heat associated with those
flames. The moment Whisper considered it opportune, she led his force into the
fortress.
One-Eye says he really considered going, but had a bad feeling about it. He
watched the mob charge in, workers and all, then hiked around to our side. He
joined me in the hospital and updated me as he worked.
Moments after he arrived, the backside of the castle collapsed. The whole earth
rumbled. A long roar rolled down the thousand feet of the back slope. Very
dramatic, but to little effect. The castle creatures were not inconvenienced at
all.
Parts of the forewall were falling too, broken by the Lady's incessant attack.
Company members continued to arrive, accompanied by frightened formations of the
Duke's men and even some Custodians rigged out as soldiers. The Lieutenant fed
them into his lines. He allowed no one else to enter the castle.
Strange lights and fires, fell howls and noises, and terrible, terrible odors
came out of that place. I don't know what happened in there. Maybe I never will.
I gather that hardly anyone came back.
A strange, deep-throated, almost inaudible moaning began. It had me shuddering
before I noted it consciously. It climbed in pitch with extreme deliberation, in
volume much more rapidly. Soon it shook the whole ridge. It came from everywhere
at once. After a while it seemed to have meaning, like speech incredibly slowed.
I could detect a rhythm, like words stretched over minutes.
One thought. One thought alone. The Dominator. He was coming through.
For an instant I thought I could interpret the words. “Ardath, you bitch.” But
that went away, chased by fear. Goblin appeared at the hospital, looked us over,
and seemed relieved to find One-Eye there. He said nothing, and I got no chance
to ask what he had been up to recently. He returned to the night, parting with a
wave.
Silent appeared a few minutes later, looking grim. Silent, my partner in guilty
knowledge, whom I had not seen in more than a year, whom I had missed during my
visit to Duretile. He looked taller, leaner and bleaker than ever. He nodded,
began talking rapidly in deaf speech. “There is a ship on the waterfront flying
a red banner. Go there immediately.“ ”What?”
"Go to the ship with the red banner immediately. Stop only to inform others of
the old Company. These are orders from the Captain. They are not to be
disobeyed.“ ”One-Eye. ...“ ”I caught it, Croaker,“ he said. ”What the hell, hey,
Silent?"
Silent signed, “There will be trouble with the Taken. This ship will sail to
Meadenvil, where loose ends must be tied off. Those who know too much must
disappear. Come. We just gather the old brothers and go.”
There weren't many old brothers around. One-Eye and I hurried around telling
everyone we could find, and in fifteen minutes a crowd of us were headed toward
the Port River bridge, one as baffled as another. I kept looking back. Elmo was
inside the castle. Elmo, who was my best friend. Elmo, who might be taken by the
Taken. . . .
ON THE RUN
Ninety-six men reported aboard, as ordered. A dozen were men for whom the order
had not been meant, but who could not be sent away. Missing were a hundred
brothers from the old days, before we crossed the Sea of Torments. Some had died
on the slopes. Some were inside the castle. Some we hadn't been able to find.
But none of the missing were men who had dangerous knowledge, except Elmo and
the Captain.
I was there. Silent, One-Eye and Goblin were there. The Lieutenant was there,
more baffled than anyone else. Candy, Otto, Hagop. . . . The list goes on and
on. They were all there.
But Elmo wasn't, and the old man wasn't, and there was a threat of mutiny when
Silent passed the word to put out without them. “Orders,” was all he would say,
and that in the finger speech many of the men could not follow, though we had
been using it for years. It was a legacy Darling had left the Company, a mode of
communication useful on the hunt or battlefield.
The moment the ship was under way, Silent produced a sealed letter marked with
the Captain's sign. Silent took the officers present into the cabin of the
ship's master. He instructed me to read the letter aloud.
“You were right about the Taken. Croaker,” I read. "They do suspect, and they do
intend to move against the Company. I have done what I can to circumvent them by
hiring a ship to take my most endangered brothers to safety. I will not be able
to join you, as my absence would alert the Taken. Do not dawdle. I do not expect
to last long once they discover your desertion. As you and Goblin can attest, no
man hides from the Lady's Eye.
“I do not know that flight will present much hope. They will hunt you, for they
will get things from me unless I am quick on my feet. I know enough to set them
on the trail. . . .”
The Lieutenant interrupted. “What the hell is going on?” He knew there were
secrets some of us shared, to which he was not privy. “I'd say we're past
playing games and keeping things from each other.”
I looked at Silent, said, “I think we should tell everybody, just so there's a
chance the knowledge won't die.”
Silent nodded.
“Lieutenant, Darling is the White Rose.”
“What? But. ...”
"Yes. Silent and I have known since the battle at Charm. Raven figured it out
first. That's why he deserted. He wanted to get her as far from the Lady as he
could. You know how much he loved her. I think a few others guessed too.''
The announcement did not cause a stir. Only the Lieutenant was surprised. The
others had suspected.
The Captain's letter hadn't much more to say. Farewells. A suggestion we elect
the Lieutenant to replace him. And a final, private word to me.