The Birthgrave (39 page)

The night of the third day, Vazkor and his captains sat in the black pavilion, and discussed the hill-crossing, and the march toward those walls. Orash she was called, this first fish of the catch. I, too, sat through this assembly. No one denied me my place. Vazkor did not speak to me at all, and neither did I speak to them, only listened. There seemed little plan, all in all, only the aggression of persistence, determination, and greed.

Though it was easier than they had anticipated, the riding was not good through the rocks. Snow falls came crashing down from the high places, dislodged by the reverberations of thousands of marching feet, hooves, rolling wagon wheels. It was a crossing of three days, and ten men died on the first. At night, camp fires made blood splotches on the ice walls above. On the third day the head of the army emerged on the rock shelves below, and the rest floundered after. Part of an old roadway guided us down the last steep miles to the valley floor. There are many roads in the valley. They seemed to come from nowhere and vanish again into the ground after a mile or so, like the trails of huge primeval slugs.

There was a strange feel to that part of the valley. A silence. The desert had been silent too, but not in the same way. There had been a dry wind there, occasional birds. It was easy to imagine a little life might exist, in hiding now from the snow. But the valley seemed to have no wind—the hills seemed to seal it off like a bowl, and the low white sky was the lid. In the valley even the trees were unreal, the straight hard trunks, the persistent foliage which was not green but black. Men chopped them down for wood stores, and the grinding scream of each as it fell pierced my ears and struck through to my belly. And ahead the wood-garlanded City of Orash. Orash which seemed asleep, or vacated too. As we rode across the floor toward it, a curious conviction began to grow on me that it was quite empty, or else that everyone in it was dead. It was Uasti, I recalled, among the wagons, who told me the legend of the Lost—how the disease came, and they died where they stood or lay, finally with none left to bury them. A dream began to come at night. On the white horse I rode with the great army, not far back, with Mazlek's men, as I did by day, but at the very head, alone. The gates yawned open, and, beyond, the white streets lay straight as a rule, stretching to a distant burning point. In the dreams there was never any sound, not even the rumble of the host behind me. The ride went on and on, and a terror grew with it, a terror apparently without reason, yet cold and clinging and unshakable. There was no climax to the dream, no sudden horror revealed, only the ride, the emptiness, and the fear.

We made camp by the oval frozen lake on the fifth day of the valley march. Iced reeds stood up, sharp as knives, by the rim. A mauve sunset came and went, and the shape which was the City vanished into the dark. It was then something occurred to me I had not consciously noted before: there were no lights in Orash. For miles back we should have been able to spot the haze of them, however faint, over the sloping walls by night. Now, a day's march away, I could make out the pattern of her towers and ramparts, but the window sockets were blank and black.

I had been walking around the iron walls of the camp with Mazlek. Now I turned to him and told him.

“Yes,” he said, “I thought so too. It is very strange.”

My skin began to prickle nervously. I stared across the valley plain at the thick patches of trees that girded the City, and then spilled toward us, thinning as they came. At intervals along our metal stockade sentries of Ezlann, So-Ess, Ammath, stood stiffly, facing outward, spears grasped in their hands.

“The camp is well-guarded, goddess,” Mazlek said.

I nodded.

It seemed a small thing, the darkness of Orash. Perhaps they hibernated like animals through the winter. White Desert knew little enough of their manners.

* * *

Asleep, the dream did not come. Instead, there were the cries of wolves screeching through the night, a pack of them, circling and circling the camp. I turned from side to side, restless, yet not properly awake. I had not heard wolves before in the valley, could not understand the noise of them, closer and closer. A horrible conviction took hold of me that they were over the stockade. I struggled with myself and woke abruptly. There were no wolf cries, only the silence pressing down like a cold hand.

And then. There was a tremendous crash, a cacophony of horses screaming, and the impossible thunder of their hooves. Beyond the cloth of my pavilion walls a fierce orange light opened itself, seeming to flare and flap great wings. I might have reasoned it was some accident—oil spilled on a fire, a drunken man in among the horses—but an electric silver cord ran up my spine into my brain, and I
knew.
I slept mostly clothed for the march, so now it was simply a matter of snatching up the iron sword, the long-knife, thrusting the daggers into my belt.

“Dnarl!” I called, for he had been outside my tent tonight. But no one answered. I opened the flap and went out, and was instantly knocked sideways by ten mules running mad. The pavilion went next. The scene was starkly lit by the blazing hulk of three wagons on fire and several tents a few lanes away. Through the fire there plunged the bellowing wild horses, terrified and furious, and the yelling figures of men. Above the noise of snapping wood, shouts, and panic, I heard various captains roaring for order. Lying on my back, struggling in company with the mules to get free of my pavilion, I could have laughed at it. Away to my right there was a colossal booming thud of sound. Gold fire this time, a folding plume of smoke, and streamers of sparks as oil exploded among the wood stores. Almost free, I saw a dark shape running toward me, and thought at first it must be Dnarl.

“This line around my ankle,” I indicated helpfully, but it was not Dnarl, it was a man in white clothes smeared over with dirt, his face masked like a nightmare in hell. He fell toward me, his hand alive with a curving blade, and I rolled sideways, ripping free of the tent, scrambled to my knees, and caught him in the chest as he tried to rise and finish me. I got up and stumbled over another dead man. This time it was Dnarl.

Two more thuds as oil wagons exploded. The sky was alight with blazing splinters and sparks. A tent caught near to me, and went up like burning pastry. I ran down between the pavilions, no longer bewildered or amused. I was angry with an old and well-remembered anger. Two of the white, demon-masked men of Orash spun to me from their work—my sword and long-knife swung out as one, and caught them both before they could make a sound. Hands grabbed my hair, but I jerked backward with my heel at him and the hands let go. A blade lashed out and sliced across my back, so cleanly I scarcely felt it for a second. I turned and found five or six of them waiting for me, backed by the incendiary darkness. In the light their white was a murky magenta now, the iron masks dripped the flames like blood. They wore the faces of no beast I had ever seen or heard of, maned and horned, with long cruel teeth jutting from them.

I leaped forward, and the blades rang on theirs. Metal skidded, a man cursed. White pain darted across my ribs, and then I was thrust forward, down, smashed against the white-red-black earth by the man on my back. There was no true battle frenzy on me. For a moment I panicked, slithering and jerking to avoid the certain knife thrust.

And then I heard him say, in the City tongue, with a little laugh: “A woman.”

The pressure eased and I was pushed onto my back, to lie looking up at the hideous mask.

“No time,” one of the others said. “Kill her, and come on.”

But he was anxious, this man of Orash, to enjoy his discovery. Still holding both my hands flat on the ground, he leaned over me, and a little thin shell broke in my mind, and a lazy trickle of hate dripped into the bowls of my eyes. Before, it had been agony, but now it was fiercely sweet. A pale light flickered between us. He gave a squeal and rolled from me. I got up quickly and turned, and saw them staring at him. One lifted a knife to throw it. The sweet pain pierced my eyes and he arced over and fell on his side. I ran among the others and killed them with my sword, not noticing what they did.

There was a great deal of noise after that, the red light and stink of burning things. It seemed the scarlet volcano had burst once more, this time across the southern landscape of snow, and silence. Gradually the light grew dull, almost tame.

Through the groaning shadows, I made out the cry: “Goddess! Goddess!”

I leaned on the crimson sword and waited, not really knowing yet who would come.

It was Mazlek, masked but known, and various other soldiers—my guard, men of Ezlann and So-Ess. They stood still when they found me.

“Are you hurt?” Mazlek asked.

“Not much.”

I suppose I was covered in blood. I heard later many had seen me killing the Orashians among the tents.

“Things are better now,” Mazlek said, “most of the fires out, all the attackers dead.”

They had come at midnight, apparently, to the eastern section, killed the sentries at the wall, slunk in and set some horses loose, and managed to fire a wagon or two before the camp woke in confusion. Surprise is a great ally, but there had been too few of them. They had not done as much damage as it had seemed. The most revealing point was that Orash, too, had now presumably discarded the “etiquette” of war, to fight with raw hands and anger.

In my pavilion, after I had cleaned the mess from me, I asked them where Vazkor had been and what he had done in the fighting. I did not know why I asked. I knew, whether I wished him safe or otherwise, he could not come to any harm. He had sent no word to me, but then, I had not expected that he would.

* * *

So the vast army of White Desert marched against Orash, City of Purple Valley, and I thought there might be a good deal of fighting after that skirmish by the lake. But there was not much fighting at all. Whatever spirit had possessed them to come at us with swords seemed to have died with those other deaths among the smoldering tents.

We reached her at noon, and returned fire for fire. Ten villages massed among the trees, guardians of the City fields. These, together with all crops, orchards, stores of timber, oil, and cloth were ignited and totally destroyed, except, of course, for necessities taken by the army for itself. The villagers, I think, were mostly killed, though I saw some about the camp in after days, acting as unpaid servants or whores.

After the smoke cleared, leaving a reeking black deposit on everything, the army arranged itself around the platform slope and on the causeways which led to Orash from south and north. Despite the soot, she was a white City, in design a sister to any of the desert. No sound or signal came from her. Dusk fell, and not a light was lit.

“Conserving fuel, most probably,” Mazlek said. “She guessed it might be a long wait.”

This was logical, and yet the darkness of her was unnerving. Around the walls the camp fires blazed, the lamps moved; above, the moon made an icy appearance, and between the two the white City stood lifeless, and blind.

* * *

Morning, after a night uneasy with many marching sentries. No chances taken this time.

From first light, every hour, the war trumpets of Vazkor's force pealed their challenge, reminding me a little of the clock at Za. From Orash came no answer. Curious, it is in our natures to be so afraid, so suspicious of something silent. There seemed to be a trap in Orash that stopped the great rams from rolling at her gates, the laddered towers from leaning at her walls.

Evening came creeping to the eastern line of hills.

“How are things being decided?” I asked Mazlek.

“Vazkor has three men from the Orash villages with him.”

“He is asking them about the City?” I was a little amazed. “Do they know anything?”

“It seems he thinks so, but they will not tell. You can hear the screams from time to time.”

I felt nothing for the Shlevakin of the villages, nor did Mazlek, yet we both expressed an unspoken, mutual disgust at Vazkor's pointless cruelty—because both of us hated Vazkor, for different reasons.

“I have thought about Orash,” Mazlek said. “I think she is empty.”

“Yes,” I said, “I think so.”

No moon that night, and, in the blackness, the word ran that the time of our attack should be now. As they should not have expected us in the snow months, so they should not expect us to hammer their walls in the dark.

It was well-conducted, that muffled preparation, horses held still, men silent, the machines oiled and smooth on their wheels. The first true sound was the great beaked ram going headfirst at the north gate. After that thunder there was the briefest pause, the half-unconscious waiting for a response from the City. Yet there was no response, no warning bell, no shout, no hail of missiles, pouring of fire. After the pause, the sounds of anger came again, and there was no cessation.

I sat some way back from the offensive, on the great white horse I had won myself in the Mouth. He was restless and disturbed by the armor he had had put on him. Until this he had gone very lightly trapped, only a saddle pad and rein. Now he carried, like his fellow battle steeds, the large iron breast-guard, the belly-guard, and over his back the stiffened leather drape with its built-in saddle. On his head the crown-piece to protect eyes, cheeks, and skull, with the short sharp unicorn spike protruding from the forehead. Most of the war horses were trained to kick and bite, and stab at their rider's enemy with this metal horn, but the white had not been so taught, and had no use at all for the encumbrance. He glared at the other steeds, and snorted to tell them what fools they were to brook man's impertinence.

The gate burst suddenly with a terrible sound. In the torch smoke-light men swarmed through the opening. Company by company the army cavalry galloped up the causeway, into the shattered maw of Orash. I kneed the white horse, raised my hand to Mazlek and his, and rode fast after them.