Brotherhood of the Wolf (65 page)

“I guess,” Baron Poll said. He spat off the edge of the castle, into the fog. The Baron's calm demeanor showed that he had already reached this realization, and that it did not disturb him.

Roland grumbled to Baron Poll, trying to sound confident, “I'll not do that. I'll not fight the Earth King!”

“You'll do as you're ordered,” Baron Poll said. “You'll be Raj Ahten's man when he puts you under oath.”

That was the way of it. If Raj Ahten secured the castle, he'd give the soldiers here the choice: swear fealty to me, or die.

“I'm Orden's man. I'll not forswear myself!” Roland
said. “I'll not bear sword against my own King.”

“But it will be your oath or your life!” Baron Poll said pragmatically. “Believe me, a smart man will swear fealty quickly—and take his oath back just as quick.”

“I never claimed to be a smart man,” Roland answered. It was true. He couldn't read, couldn't do numbers. He'd never had an answer for the arguments of his shrewish wife. He'd hardly been able to find his way through the fog here to Carris.

But he'd always been loyal.

“Listen,” the Baron said fiercely. “Take your oath for Raj Ahten. But once the Earth King comes, no one says you have to fight
fiercely.
If his troops come against the wall, you can just growl and wag your half-sword in a hostile manner, demanding that they all go bugger themselves. You don't have to draw blood!”

“Raj Ahten can go bugger himself,” Roland said, gripping his sword.

But when Raj Ahten's warriors began to come up on the walls, Roland dared not draw steel.

Instead he hunkered against the battlements and wished anew that he had not given the green woman his bearskin cloak. The cold now seemed more biting than it had been the night before. It pierced all the way to his heart, left him feeling numb and dazed.

After nearly half an hour, Raj Ahten's troops were still not all in, but his flameweavers had drawn mystic fiery runes in the air at the end of the causeway in a great circle. Symbols hung in the fog like tapestries upon a wall until the flameweavers pushed them. Then the fiery runes dissolved. The fog began to back away at about the pace that a man could run, opening a little window to the land.

All during that half hour, the sound of reavers approaching became louder, the dull roar of heavy carapaces dragged across the ground rising like an approaching thunderstorm.

Under the cover of fog, reavers converged around Carris from everywhere—from the north and south and west.

Warhorns blared in the fog, two miles out. Horses began
to scream in panic, and Roland could hear horses charge first to the south, then to the west, then reel madly back north.

Men on the walls began to shout, “They're lost! There's men lost out there!” “Cut off.”

Roland empathized with them. He knew how maddening that fog could be, how easily one might get lost in it.

The flameweavers had just begun to dispel the mist, and Roland waited breathlessly on the battlements as it began to peel backward, exposing the green folds of earth, the whitewashed cottages with their thatch roofs and abundant gardens, the haycocks and apple orchards and pastures and serene little canals all about Carris. A single mallard duck beside a bricked well looked up at the sky and flapped its wings in delight at being able to greet the light again.

It was such a stunningly beautiful landscape that Roland found it all the more macabre to be standing here on the battlements in the misting rain, straining to hear sounds of engagement.

On the castle walls, men began to blow warhorns, signaling to the armies of Indhopal lost out in that damnable fog, trying to steer them to safety.

The troops responded by wheeling their horses and racing toward the castle. Every moment or two, Roland could hear a horse trip and fall in that impenetrable mist, armor clashing as some knight met the ground.

And then the first troops appeared at the edge of the fog, about half a mile from Carris.

These were not fierce force warriors. They were archers with hornbows, wearing white burnooses with a little leather armor; or artillerymen with wide bronze helms and nothing more than a long knife to protect themselves; or young squires who were more used to polishing armor than wearing it.

In short, this was the rearguard, the dregs of Raj Ahten's army, all common support troops out of Indhopal come to hold Carris if it was taken. Most of them marched on foot.

Only their leaders rode horses, and once those leaders
spotted the castle, they wheeled their mounts and charged for safety in blind panic, leaving the footmen to whatever fate they could manage.

The commoners of Indhopal began shouting, fled through the villages and fields toward Castle Carris. Everywhere around them rose the thunderous roar of reavers rushing through the fog.

The smell of dust and blood began to saturate the air, along with cries of terror, and though Roland had still not seen a reaver, he knew that out in the fog men were fighting for their lives.

All along the castle walls, warhorns blared. Soldiers shouted encouragement. The troops of Indhopal sprinted toward Carris, perhaps twenty thousand strong.

Then the reavers came.

One monster raced from that damnable fog, trailing mist as if it were afire. Roland stared in horror at his first reaver.

It looked like no creature that had ever taken form in the Overworld. It was a blade-bearer in rank, a warrior without the glittering fiery runes that distinguished a mage.

The reaver ran on four legs, reserving its massive front paws to carry its weapon. In shape, the monster might best have been described as formed like an immense crab. The reaver's thick outer carapace looked to be the gray of granite from above, but had muddy highlights beneath the legs.

Its head was enormous, the size of a wagon, something of a shovel-shaped thing, with rows of waving feelers—called “philia”—along the back of its skull and down its jaws. Its teeth shone like quartz crystals, and the monster had no eyes or ears, no nostrils.

Aside from its breathing, it made no noise, no hissing roar. It merely ran among the fleeing warriors, racing past them at three times the speed a commoner could run. It sped past warriors like a sheepdog trying to head off a flock, as if it would not bother to kill a man, but sought only to beat their retreat.

But it wisely stopped well short of the castle. When it
reached a point near the front ranks of the warriors, it wheeled and went to work.

It held in its paws a glory hammer, a pole made of black reaver steel with six hundred pounds of metal at its head. According to tradition it was called a “glory hammer” because “it makes a glorious mess of a man when it hits him.”

The first swing of its glory hammer swept low over the ground without touching it, like a farmer with a scythe cutting through straw. The stroke knocked five men into oblivion, and Roland saw bodies tossed a hundred feet. One poor fellow's head whipped through the air and landed in Lake Donnestgree with a splash a hundred yards from the battle.

Some men drew weapons and tried to fight past the reaver. Others sought to surge past it. Others turned and fled madly or sought refuge in cottages or under bushes.

The monster's glory hammer rose and fell so swiftly, with such astonishing grace and surety, Roland could hardly comprehend it. For such a large beast, the reaver moved with incredible grace. In ten seconds fifty men lay dead, yet the monster's work had just begun.

Roland's mind blanked in horror, and he found himself gasping for breath, heart hammering so loudly that he feared men would think him a coward. He turned to see how others reacted. A lad next to him had gone pale in terror, but stood stiff, his jaw clenched stoically. Roland thought the boy was holding up quite well, until he saw pee streaming down the fellow's right leg.

From the barbicans came the
whonk, whonk
of artillerymen loosing ballista bolts. Shaped like giant arrows, the huge bolts were made of thirty pounds of steel. The first two shots fell short of their mark, tearing into the ranks of fleeing warriors. The sound of cranking gears followed as artillerymen struggled to reload.

Their marksman shouted, “Hold your shot until the reaver comes in range.”

By then a hundred men had died, and on the walls people began to shout, “Look! Look!”

At the edge of the fog, reavers charged forward, trailing
mist. Not by the dozens or hundreds, but by the thousands.

They bore giant blades, glory hammers, and knight gigs—long poles with enormous hooks on the end.

In their midst were mages, glittering creatures so covered with fiery runes that they looked as if they were clothed in flames. They bore crystalline staves that glowed with their own inner light.

The thunder of carapaces bouncing over the ground made the castle walls tremble. The terrified cries of common soldiers became a roaring in Roland's ears. His legs felt so weak, they probably could not hold him up much longer.

Roland felt urine stream down his own leg.

“By the Powers!” Baron Poll bellowed.

Men began to leap from the castle walls out into the lake rather than face the reavers.

Some nearby fool with a voice like a town crier's shouted, “Please remain calm! Please remain calm! Please remain
vigilantly
optimistic, and I'm fairly certain we'll all come out of this … intact.”

Roland wondered if the fellow was trying to reassure him, or if he only sought to face death like the legendary knights of old—in a spirit of good humor.

If ever there was a time in Roland's life to panic, it was now.

Baron Poll glanced back, his face lit by dawn's first light. The fat knight tried to make a jest, speaking loudly to be heard over the clash of arms and death cries in the background. “Take a deep breath, lad. It may be your last.”

39
A SEPARATE WORLD

When the clubfooted boy fetched Myrrima from the archery range an hour after sunrise, she expected the lad to tell her that it was time to mount up.

Instead, he told her simply that Iome wanted her at the Dedicates' Keep.

She hurried to meet Her Highness. The morning sun came bright here at Castle Groverman. It was rising in a perfect blue sky, spreading the day before it. Fish eagles wheeled in the distance.

From the courtyard of the keep, Myrrima could see out on the plain for twenty miles: the Wind River winding like a silver thread through the heather, the ranches and cottages at every little hillock by the river's side, the herds of cattle and horses dotting the heather.

Outside the keep proper, doves and pigeons pecked by the hitching posts on the green. Myrrima went to the wall that surrounded the Dedicates' Keep. Its brown sandstone walls could not match the height of the keep at Castle Sylvarresta. Though the keep was large, with a huge open courtyard, it was not designed to hold more than a couple of hundred Dedicates.

As Myrrima approached the keep, she felt surprised to hear something odd: music.

Inside the Dedicates' Keep—even at this early hour—she could hear a song played on pipes, drums, tambour, and lute, accompanied by singing. The Dedicates, those not too weakened from granting endowments, were making merry.

Just inside the portcullis, she found a knot of curious folk standing there in a crowd, looking off onto the green.

As Myrrima passed them, one old woman whispered, “That's her, the one who slew the Darkling Glory.” Myrrima felt her face turning red. “They're calling her ‘Here-don's Glory,'” the old woman continued.

“She's been out all night practicing with that bow,” a young lad said. “I hear she can knock the eye out of a diving hawk at two hundred paces. Now she's off to kill Raj Ahten himself!”

Myrrima ducked her head, tried to ignore the rumors. “Knock the eye out of a diving hawk, indeed!” she wanted to protest. “I'm lucky if I don't get all tangled up trying to string my own bow.”

Myrrima entered the green and felt astonished to see every Dedicate in the keep out on the grass. Tables were filled with drink, and the cooks had made savory pies and tarts by the score. Those Dedicates who had given brawn, grace, or metabolism—and thus could not easily move—lay shaded beneath a huge oak in the courtyard while all other Dedicates celebrated.