The Lair of Bones (53 page)

Time and again his weapon stabbed.

He saw the Earth's plan now. Danger was swelling all about him. The One True Master had sensed his presence, and would come for him, as would any Runelord who sought to protect his precious Dedicates.

He was glad that he had given up his light, for now he could see the reavers' glowing runes even better.

He could sense a rising wave of danger.

She was coming. Gaborn darted into the reavers, raced beneath the legs of one monster, vaulted up onto the back of another and struck down a vector.

She was at the door.

He had killed perhaps fifty Dedicates, including three vectors. He whirled toward the chamber entrance.

A blackness swirled at the door, a shadow that blotted out the night. It wasn't just Gaborn's imagination. Dark vapors flowed into the chamber like a fog. Whatever was coming, it was more than a reaver.

And suddenly, Gaborn saw it.

A monstrosity appeared among the shadows, a reaver larger and more bloated than any fell mage he had ever encountered. Her feet clacked and her swollen belly groaned as she slid across the floor. A loud hissing followed as she scrabbled forward, air streaming from her vast anus.

The reek was magnificent. Gaborn could smell musty endowments, like putrid fat and rotten cabbages and moldy hair, so thick in the air that it choked him.

Darkness spread out from her, and as she advanced, shadows groped about Gaborn's knees.

He suddenly felt dazed. The creature twisted in his vision, and his eyes could not focus on it. In his mind's eye, the reaver seemed to expand suddenly, to grow taller and loom over him, as if to fill the whole chamber, as if to fill the universe.

36

Let me be remembered not for how I lived but for how I died!

—
last words attributed to Sir Marten Braiden, who died heroically in the Battle of the Boars

Night fell swiftly over Carris. The sun slanted east beyond the mountains while the haze of distant smoke curtained off the light. Twenty miles to the north, reavers rushed in a horde down the mountainside, their feet making a dull rumble that shook a man's very bones. Borenson could not see them well, for a cloud of gree blackened the sky above. Howlers emitted their strange cries, like unearthly trumpets, and all of the reavers hissed. But there was another sound that bothered Borenson, a dull concussive
boom, boom, boom
that preceded the reavers like distant thunder.

The horde was less than an hour away. On the castle wall, men took up battle song to cheer their hearts.

In the failing light, Chondler led Borenson to his post as commoners began pulling up planks from the old drawbridge and tossing them into the lake.

“Rider coming!” someone shouted from the rooftop.

Borenson turned to see a lone rider racing from the south in the dusk, his swift gray imperial warhorse thundering over the road. The rider bent low, his robes flapping wildly in the wind of his passage.

He raced along the road and rounded the bend. The bridge was more than halfway destroyed, but his powerful steed leapt the gulf and skidded to a halt not more than a dozen yards behind Borenson.

“Hail, Sir?…” Marshal Chondler said.

The rider came to a halt, and sat on his horse, peering critically at the defenses. He was an old man in gray robes, with gray hair and ruddy cheeks.
A strange light was in his eyes, and Borenson felt unreasonably that he knew the man from somewhere.

As he tried to imagine where he'd met the fellow, his mind returned to his childhood. Near his home there had been a peach orchard where he'd liked to go. He'd spent many an afternoon beneath a crooked old peach tree, its boughs so heavy with fruit that they swept the ground, and he'd imagined that he was in a deep forest filled with wolves and lions. He'd always felt a great sense of peace there, and now he felt that peace again.

“Binnesman!” Myrrima cried. “What are you doing here?”

The old fellow looked down on Myrrima, and Borenson finally recognized the old wizard. He had aged forty years in the past two days. “I've come to protect my charges,” he said. “Perhaps for the last time.”

He said no more for a moment, just peered up at the defenses, studying the stonework for signs of weakness that only a wizard could see. Just ahead, blocking the causeway where the barbican had been, piles of stone bristled with sharpened reaver blades, forming odd little humped barriers. Borenson had seen drawings of them in a book. They were called hedge-hogs. They had been laid out in a staggered pattern to slow any reaver charge enough so that archers and artillerymen atop the towers could use the causeway as a killing field.

Beyond that, two new guard towers rose north and south above the city gate.

“The mortar is far from dry in those towers,” Binnesman muttered under his breath. “The reavers could knock them down with a thought.” He frowned with concern and began muttering a spell, sparing no thought for Borenson, High Marshal Chondler, or any other man.

Chondler asked the wizard, “How did you come here? Why did you leave the Earth King's side?”

Binnesman peered down at the High Marshal. “Foolishness. I came here by my own foolishness,” the wizard said at last. “I was wounded in the Underworld, and Gaborn buried me for my own protection. For long I lay beneath the Earth, healing, and pondered. As I did, the reaver horde thundered over my head. By the time I woke, Gaborn was far gone, beyond my power to reach him.

“I suspected then that the Earth suffered me to get wounded for a pur-pose. I led Gaborn into the Underworld because I felt that he needed me.
But you are all under my protection, and I knew that I was needed here, also.

“So when I had healed enough, I took care of some urgent matters to the east, then came as fast as I could.”

“I thank you,” Marshal Chondler said. “A wizard of your stature will be welcome indeed.”

Binnesman peered at the castle walls. Worry etched his brow, and he shook his head. “I fear that there is little that I can do. But I will try.”

He dismounted and looked as if he would march into the castle. But he stopped and peered hard at Myrrima, then put a hand on her shoulder.

“Your time is at hand, woman. The enemies of the Earth are gathering, and perhaps only you can resist them. Help us.” He squeezed her shoulder, as if to comfort her, and then strode away.

Myrrima stood for a moment, then went to the moat. She reached down and dipped an arrow into the water, sat there for a long moment drawing runes upon the water's surface, dipping each arrow from her quiver in turn.

Borenson watched her for a long moment. He did not understand the significance of the runes that she sketched, but he dared not disturb a wizardess at her work.

He headed toward the castle, just behind High Marshal Chondler, Sarka Kaul, and the Wizard Binnesman. As Borenson walked the length of the causeway a garlicky scent wafted up, a scent so powerful it nearly brought tears to his eyes.

“What's this?” Binnesman asked, peering down.

“Onions and garlic, boiled with reaver philia,” High Marshal Chondler said. “I'm hoping that this reek bothers them more than it does us.”

A dangerous smile worked on the wizard's lips. “Yes, this may be more help than all of your walls and all of your arrows.”

Just before the curtain wall of the castle stood one last low wall, a bulwark of substantial proportions. Here, once again, the reavers' own weapons would work against them. The wall bristled with bent reaver blades, so that they looked like a crown of wicked thorns set atop the stone. Logs and oil-soaked rags were worked into the mix.

Three sally ports just wide enough to let a horse pass through were placed beneath the bulwark.

Chondler led the party into the town square, where similar bulwarks ringed the square. Streets led west, north, and south beneath the bulwarks. Sally ports let men pass under. Binnesman studied the bulwarks with a critical eye, as if what he saw worried him. He suddenly raised his staff over-head and began sketching runes of strength upon the wall.

The men on the castle walls cheered to have a wizard of Binnesman's stature blessing their fortifications.

Marshal Chondler halted. Binnesman turned and uttered a spell over the garlic-strewn causeway. As he worked, Marshal Chondler bent in his saddle, and said, “That will be your station, Sir Borenson.” He nodded toward the sally port beneath the ramparts on the left. “You'll be fighting in a team. In our last battle, the reavers took the walls in minutes. The only thing that gave them pause was men of sound heart, banded together. When confronted by such a force, the reavers grew confused. They didn't know which adversary might strike next, or which might pose the greatest danger.

“When the reavers charge, you'll set the bulwark here afire. It should give you ample light to see by and provide extra protection from the reavers.”

“The dead reavers will pile up quickly,” Borenson said, “leaving us no room to fight.”

“I've taken that into account,” Chondler agreed. “We expect that you will need to retreat, if only to give you room to fight. As you fall back, you'll defend Garlands Street. There are three more bulwarks like this up the lane. We have archers stationed atop the roofs and in the windows of every market. You must hold the reavers as the commoners fall back.”

Garlands Street ran the length of the whole island, a distance of some two miles. Ramshackle merchant shops lined the street for the first half mile, shops that stood three or four stories tall. The buildings leaned so close together that the pitched roofs from every shop nearly joined. After that, dilapidated warehouses and smaller hovels squatted along the street's margins.

“As a last resort,” Chondler said, “we have boats in the marina, enough to carry out a few hundred people. You'll hold the reavers there, if you can.”

“Fair enough,” Borenson said. He'd never been down to the old under-ground marina, and didn't even know the way, but he wasn't worried. He
could simply follow the fleeing warriors. Besides, he doubted that he'd live long enough to make it to the boats.

“Good luck,” Chondler said. He eyed the south tower just above Borenson's head, not a dozen yards away. Myrrima had just come from washing her arrows. “Lady Myrrima,” he continued. “Take your steel bow up to the third story, and relieve the archer there. I suspect that you will want to guard your husband's back.”

“Thank you,” Myrrima said.

Binnesman finished his spell, and Sarka Kaul peered up at the wizard and Chondler. “Now,” the Days said, “let us take counsel together and see if we can figure out how to save this city.”

As Chondler, Sarka Kaul, and Binnesman hurried up toward the duke's old Keep on the hill, Borenson watched the wizard.

Despite the fact that an innumerable horde of reavers marched on the city, Borenson felt a flicker of hope.

Myrrima stood with him for a long moment, her hand wrapped about her bow. She bit her lower lip nervously and tapped her foot for a moment, but said nothing. Borenson realized that she felt shy about making public displays of affection, though she made up for it in private. Atop the walls, commoners began to sing a war song.

“Beyond the battle lie better days,

So let my blood be honored here.

Raise your mug and sing my praise

Like some sweet lark in coming years.”

Myrrima leaned forward, wrapped one arm around his shoulders, and just held him for a long moment. She didn't say anything, and finally Borenson whispered, “I love you. I think I was destined to love you.”

“I'll tell you what,” Myrrima said. “After this battle, you can show me how much you love me, instead of jawing about it.”

Borenson said nothing. He was standing inside the castle where his father had died, and the ground trembled from the tread of advancing reavers.

“This is a good place to fight,” Myrrima said. “Water is all around us. Can you feel its power?”

“No,” Borenson answered. “I can hear the small waves lapping on the rocks, and I can smell the lake in the air. But I don't feel anything.”