A Man Rides Through (30 page)

Then he noticed that wherever the cat put its paws the new grass and old leaves caught fire. It had already left a smoldering trail away into the distance, where the wolfpack had come from. And it was approaching—not rapidly, but without any hesitation—advancing as steadily and inevitably as a stormfront.

"Tholden," the bowman murmured like a prayer, "what
is
it?"

This was foolishness, really. Who was he to pretend that he could fill his father's boots, that he could succeed as the next Domne? He didn't understand anything about Imagery. The only real accomplishment of his life, from his point of view, was to figure out the best time of year and the best conditions to fertilize apricot trees. Unless he counted marrying Quiss, or having five children: his family was also an accomplishment that gave him pride.

"How many arrows do you have left?" he asked the bowman.

"None." It was a question the man understood. "I'll have to get them from the wolves."

"Don't bother. Go." Tholden pushed him gently. "Get men for the watertubs. If that thing doesn't just break the stockade, it'll burn it down."

The bowman clattered off the ladder, sped away. Tholden turned to the other bowmen, actually turned his back on the advancing firecat. "If you're out of arrows," he said as if he were speaking to a small circle of friends on an occasion of no great importance, "go rally Houseldon. We need help.

"If you've still got some left, come up here."

No more than fifty yards away, the firecat brushed past a discarded corn shock. At once, the shock sprang into flame and withered to crisp ash.

The platform wobbled as two bowmen clambered up to join Tholden. Nodding toward the firecat, he said, "Aim for the eyes."

"Will that kill it?" asked one of the men huskily.

"Who knows? You got any better ideas?"

The man shook his head. His face was taut with fear, but he didn't back away.

The bowmen nocked their shafts, strained their bows. Almost simultaneously, they let fly.

The firecat flicked its head aside negligently. The arrows caught fire and became charcoal before their heads could pierce the cat's hide.

"I think we need a better idea," the second bowman muttered as he and his comrade readied more shafts.

As if he were losing his mind, Tholden turned again and shouted, "Geraden? Where's
Geraden?"

The first of his reinforcements had begun to arrive: men who hadn't encountered the wolves; others who grasped that a greater danger was coming; some who were so frightened that the bowmen had to goad them along. No one had seen Geraden. A few of the defenders stared at Tholden as if he were speaking an alien tongue.

"All right," he rasped. "We'll do it ourselves." The wildness in his eyes was getting worse. Suddenly furious, he roared, "Don't just stand there! Get those watertubs up onto the banquette!"

Galvanized by the incongruous desperation in his high, kind voice, the men below him started hurrying.

The bowmen exhausted their shafts—to no purpose—and jumped out of the way of the watertubs. The firecat was so close now that Tholden thought he could feel its heat. Or maybe that was just the sun. The sky was clear and gorgeous to the horizons, and the air was growing warm. With blood running from his face like sweat, he helped several men boost a watertub into position.

Just in time—barely in time. The cat reached the stockade, paused, tested the wood with its nose. Instant flames swept upward, building swiftly from a small flicker to a savage blaze. The hands and arms supporting the watertubs were scorched. Tholden lost his beard and eyebrows; he nearly lost his eyes.

Then two half hogsheads went over the wall almost simultaneously, and water hit the flames and the heat with a roar like an explosion.

The fire in the timbers went out. But the concussion as that much water erupted into steam blasted the men off the platform, off the banquette.

Tholden landed on his shoulder and spent a stunned and useless moment staring paralyzed at the sky while all his muscles locked up around the jolt. It was possible that his shoulder was broken. It seemed possible to him that he would never breathe again. The hard, hot steam disappeared into the air almost immediately, leaving the heavens blue and perfect, untouched.

After a momentary delay, the wet wood of the stockade began to smolder.

Wrenching air into his lungs, Tholden rolled sideways, got his legs under him.

His shoulder was numb. He couldn't move that arm.

Flames licked between the timbers. The lashings that held the timbers began to snap.

With a howl of heat, the wall caught fire again and blazed up like the blast of a furnace.

Tholden and his men staggered backward, stared as the timbers flamed—and the firecat thrust its way between the beams as if they were nothing more than charcoal twigs.

"Tholden.'"
people screamed.

"Help!"

"Tell us what to do!"

"We don't know what to do!"

"Run," he coughed weakly. He had never felt such intense fire in his life, never seen anything that terrified him as much as this firecat did. "Run." The heat drew tears from his eyes as if he were weeping. Houseldon was built of wood. The whole place would burn. "Get out of the way."

Automatically, without thought, he retreated to keep the heat at a distance. The firecat ambled after him with an indirect, even nonchalant gait, as if he were an especially tasty and helpless mouse.

Moving like a madman, he led the firecat in among the buildings.

The cat moved to the side of the lane while it followed him. Fire swept up the wall of a granary; then, with a detonation like a thunderclap, the grain itself took flame. Fire and smoke and blazing grain swirled a hundred feet into the air.

The merchant who owned the granary lived in a house beside it. He was an old man with a vast quantity of fat and no reputation whatsoever for valor; yet he ran raging out onto his porch and flung a washbasin full of water at the cat.

The cat didn't notice his attack.

Almost instantly, the fire consumed him.

Tholden retreated as slowly as he could bear, bringing Houseldon's destruction with him.

He nearly missed what had happened when the firecat abruptly let out a roar of vexation—perhaps even of pain—and flinched to the side. A bit of flame clung to the pads of one forepaw. The beast hunched over and licked its paw clean; its tail switched malevolently. When it started moving again, it appeared angrier, more determined; it looked like it intended to pounce on him without further delay.

Tholden gaped dumbly, transfixed by the incomprehensible fact that the creature had hurt itself by stepping in a small pile of sheepdung.

As if this information were too much for him, his eyes rolled in
his head; his scorched and naked face stretched into a wail; his numb arm flapped against his side.

Awkwardly, he turned and dashed out of the firecat's path, fled between
the nearest houses as if he had vultures beating around his head. The people who saw him go believed that his mind had snapped.

The cat didn't pursue him. It was after other prey.

Setting homes and shops ablaze almost casually as it went, it continued its malign stroll into the heart of Houseldon.

Toward Terisa and Geraden.

Terisa and Geraden and the Domne heard the screams; they saw fire and smoke blasting into the sky. "Glass and splinters!" Geraden hissed between his teeth. "What's
that?"

"Not wolves, I'm afraid," muttered the Domne. He nudged the carcass at his feet. "Even wolves like that don't set fires."

Alarm cleared the giddiness out of Terisa's head. She took her weight on her legs and tried to think.

"Where's Tholden?"

Geraden glanced at her. He and the Domne didn't look at each other.

One of the bowmen led the rout down the street. Waving people past him, he stopped in front of the Domne. "My lord," he gasped, urgent for breath, "the wall is breached. Houses are burning."

"I can see that," replied the Domne with uncharacteristic asperity. "How did it happen?"

"A creature of Imagery. A cat as big as a steer. It sets fire to everything.

"It's coming this way."

Terisa felt a cold hand close around her heart. Sets fire to everything. "Castellan Lebbick told me about a cat like that. It killed his guards." He sent out fifty men, and it killed them. "When they were trying to capture the Congery's champion."

Geraden nodded grimly. "Eremis hasn't got enough men. Or enough men to spare. Or he can't translate enough of them here without making them mad. So he's using Imagery to attack us. Trying to slaughter us wholesale instead of murdering us individually."

The fires came closer. A warehouse tossed flames in all directions as kegs of oil exploded. The destruction of Houseldon already seemed to be raging out of control.

The Domne watched his people flee past him as if the sight made him want to throw up. He kept his voice quiet, however.

"You're the only Imager in the family, Geraden. How do we defend ourselves?"

"With mirrors," Geraden snarled. Terisa thought he looked exactly like his father at that moment—so hard and horrified that he wanted to throw up. "Which we haven't got."

Then she caught her first glimpse of the firecat. Involuntarily, she took a step backward.

"Where's Tholden?" she asked again. She was suddenly afraid that he was already dead.

Tholden was running for his life.

His shoulder wasn't broken. If it were broken, it would have started to hurt before this. Nevertheless it remained numb; he still couldn't use it. It hampered his balance, his gait. Because of it, he ran like a hunchback.

Ran between the houses and along the lanes of Houseldon as if he were terrified.

He had forgotten the wolves—forgotten them completely. His desperation didn't hold room for any other danger. One of the houses he passed had had its door torn off the hinges, but he didn't notice that. He didn't hear the dying whimpers from inside, didn't see the beast munching flesh in the doorway. He had no idea what was happening when the wolf left the infant it was eating and leaped at his head.

Because of his lurching gait, it missed his head. Yet its claws raked his back as it went by him.

That pain got his attention. He and the wolf wheeled to meet each other; as fierce as the beast, he faced its charge.

Slobbering blood, it sprang again.

He had no time for fear or forethought. In fact, he had no time for the wolf. Striding forward as the beast leaped, he kicked it in the ribcage so hard that he ruptured its heart.

Then he ran on.

His back bled as if it were on fire. Coughing for help, he ran toward the nearest wastepit where Houseldon accumulated fertilizer for
the orchards and fields.

He didn't have much time. The people fleeing along the street had scattered; Terisa, Geraden, and the Domne could see the firecat clearly now.

And it could see them: that was obvious. Its eyes were fixed on them as if at last it had recognized its true prey.

Well, of course. Stunned with fright and helplessness, Terisa had been reduced to talking to herself. Eremis wouldn't trust random violence to kill them. And he must be able to talk to that thing. Otherwise how could he get it to do what he wanted? It might have attacked the champion instead of the Castellan's guards. He probably gave it a description of the people it was supposed to kill.

Uselessly, she wondered what kind of description the firecat would understand. Could Eremis really talk to it?