Doom's Break (37 page)

"What is it, Thru?"

"Listen."

Across the hills, over the trees, they heard it. A great moan that went on and on, an unbroken sound, neither rising nor falling for many seconds, until at last it cut off with a strange sob.

Silence fell across the Land, while every man and every mot felt his or her being shiver to its core. Some dropped their weapons and sprawled witless on the ground. Others crept into the trees and tried to hide.

A vast red light lit up the north, and they became aware of the sound of enormous drums beating in the hills.

"It is him. The crisis is upon us."

Nuza held up her hands as if for rain. "What is it?"

Thru saw the light pulsing with the sound. "Black sorcery, that is all I know."

With a last embrace he left her and started back to the front.

The climb over the hills seemed to take an eternity. The red light pulsed in the sky, the great drums throbbed, and a terrible gloom settled over Thru's spirits. Men, mots and donkey carts were all mixed up on the trail, with some trying to get up the hill and others seeking to get down to the village.

Suddenly Thru felt a sizzling sensation in his hands and feet, and then terrifying, alien images rushed into his mind. He cried out, one in a multitude of others who cried as well. The images did not let up. At first they were almost meaningless, shapes like those of bats or knives or perhaps simply clouds, but they filled his mind and blocked his vision.

Thru stumbled into someone and recoiled from a blow. Dimly he heard voices cursing in both the tongue of the Land and in Shasht. His vision cleared, and he saw himself surrounded by men and mots holding hands to their ears, some who had fallen to their knees in the mud.

A donkey cart had turned over; the donkey was kicking in the stays and the wounded men had spilled out into the brush. No one seemed capable of restraining the struggling animal or helping the wounded. Thru staggered toward the donkey, then stopped dead, blinded by a terrifying hallucination.

He waved his hands to force it away, but it would not leave him.

He stood on a shadowy plain. In the company of thousands of other doomed souls, he was marching forward to a line of great anvils. Behind the anvils stood enormous men wielding huge bloody hammers that rose and fell in time with the throbbing drums. As the doomed came up to the anvils, they laid their heads meekly on the gore-soaked metal, and the hammers came down.

Thru struggled to clear this monstrous vision from his mind, but it held fast. The sense of the inevitable grew in his heart. Why continue with the struggle when death was the only certain reward? Why resist the great power of the enemy that towered above them?

The hammers were rising and falling. The sound of their blows on the anvils throbbed in his brain. Thru heard himself screaming, but it was almost as if he were already a ghost and separated from the real world by a membrane across which sounds filtered only weakly. Strange, sickly images continued to torment him. Bones and graves, corpse flesh hanging from hooks, a pile of skulls with green light glowing in the empty sockets—all paraded across his vision.

Then the spell was broken. A flash of white light erupted across the plain, splitting the darkness like a knife. The anvils disappeared, the hammers vanished, and Thru was back, crouched over the mud on the slope of Blue Hill, holding his head in his hands with tears streaming down his cheeks.

All around him, mots and men were recovering. Someone took hold of the donkey's reins. Others struggled up from the mud. Thru shook himself free of the horror and went on, plowing through the mud and the chaotic crowd of mots and men on the trail.

As he came over the crest of the hill, the red light fell upon him in full fury. The source of the light was down in the Shell Valley, and it glowed like the sun. The throbbing of the great drums continued, and Thru could see that the battle had begun again. Arrayed across the valley were serried ranks of spears, helmets, and shields, and he could hear the harsh music of war coming from where the enemy's thrusts across the river had driven into Toshak's formations.

The trail was still full of mots and men moving away from the fight, but Thru pressed on and eventually found Toshak and his staff perched on a knoll thrust out of the northern slope of the hill.

"Colonel Gillo, good to see you. Our enemy decided not to wait for morning."

"Sir. I was delayed."

"By the hallucinations, I expect. Well, not your fault, that's for sure. We all had them, until the Assenzi did something that cut them off."

Thru recalled that blinding flash of white light. "Thanks be given to the Assenzi," he said.

"Yes, indeed, but the enemy crossed the river during that period, took our front ranks by surprise, and drove us back from the river. Now he's massed enough troops on this side to give us a real fight."

"What about those horsemen?"

"Not seen them yet, but we will. I have a regiment in reserve on the flank."

"And the pyluk?"

"The same. We know they're in the woods upstream, but so far we haven't seen any indications that they'll be attacking soon."

Toshak was studying the ground beneath his observation point. Thru could see that the mot front line had bent back in a bow shape under the pressure of two large assault columns, one at either end of the line. In the center there was relative quiet.

"I think our enemy thought his hallucination would last a while longer and disrupt us more than it did."

"It disrupted me, all right. I could barely walk while it was going on."

"Yes, there's no question that this sorcerer has great power, but the Assenzi knew how to break the spell."

As they watched, they could see the enemy attacks losing impetus and beginning to subside.

Suddenly the red light cut off and the drumming slowly faded to nothing.

Without that awful light it was hard at first to see what was happening. As their eyes adjusted, they noted that the enemy had pulled back both assault columns and was consolidating a position about two hundred yards south of the river, approximately half the distance to the base of the hill on which Toshak and Thru were standing.

Toshak turned his attention to the woods and sent messengers forward to instruct two regiments to move to the right flank and strengthen the flank guard.

"I don't think he will want to rest on that line. If we were to break him there, we could destroy his army against the river when the tide comes in later."

"He will attack again?"

"He must do something. He can't stay where he is."

"He likes to disguise his attacks with sorcery."

As if summoned by the word, a pair of spindly little figures appeared out of the darkness. Melidofulo, the patron Assenzi of Dronned, was one. The other was Estremides, who had been sent by Cutshamakim of Highnoth to assist Toshak during the campaign.

"Greetings, Masters," said Toshak with a bow.

"Greetings, General, Colonel. Karnemin's spell of blinding darkness has been broken, I am glad to say," said Melidofulo.

"Quite dispelled, we might add," said Estremides with a hint of levity.

Thru, most familiar with Utnapishtim of all the Assenzi, smiled at Estremides's jest.

"But we can be sure he will try something else." Melidofulo stared down through the darkness toward the river where the enemy army was massed.

"Colonel Gillo and I were just discussing how the enemy likes to use his sorcery to disguise his army's movements."

"He is a master of these things," said Melidofulo in a somber voice. "But we can be sure he will vary his approaches. Do not grow complacent, ever, when dealing with this enemy."

No sooner had the Assenzi said this than they heard horns blare over to the right. A mud-spattered scout appeared shortly afterward to inform Toshak that the pyluk were moving about in the forest. So far there appeared to be nothing organized about the movements, but they were enough to have alarmed the Grys Norvory, in command of the Third Regiment, which held the right flank.

Thru was sent to the Grys with a message.

"By the time you get there, I'm sure this message will be irrelevant, Gillo, since the Ninth and Thirteenth Regiments will have joined Norvory on the flank, but it will serve to assure him that I'm keeping an eye on those pyluk, and those horsemen, wherever they are. Moreover, I want you to study the flank and then report back. I'd like to go myself, but think it's better I remain here where I can see the whole field and react quickly to any fresh developments."

Thru took the message, drained a flask of tea, and turned to go. Almost immediately he bumped into his old friend Meu of Deepford, now the quartermaster general of the army of Dronned.

"Meu! Or, General Meu, sir!" said Thru with a smile and a salute.

Meu grinned back. "Stand easy, Colonel." They both laughed. "Well, well, old friend, good to see you. I caught a glimpse of you one time a few weeks back at the palace in Dronned, but you were hurrying away and I was hurrying in to speak to the King."

"Oh, Meu, that's been the way of it since this campaign began. I've covered a thousand miles and gone through another pair of boots."

"Where are you off to now?"

"The right flank. The Grys Norvory holds it with the Third Regiment. General Toshak wants a detailed report on the situation there."

"Good luck. You'll be glad to know that I've got twenty wagons full of meal coming up the back side of the hill. There should be a very good breakfast for us all."

"We'll need it. I expect we'll see some hard fighting this day."

"When this is over, we must sup at the Laughing Fish in Dronned. I have so many questions to ask you about your adventures in the land of the men."

They parted with a handshake and went their way.

Thru hurried down the muddy track to the bottom of the hill and then through Shelly Fields to the right flank.

By the time Thru found the Grys Norvory's command post, the right flank had been strengthened by the arrival of the Ninth Regiment under the command of Colonel Flares and the Thirteenth under Colonel Fladgate. They had taken positions on either side of Norvory's Third Regiment.

Thru found the regimental commanders gathered at Norvory's post, set up on a hillock that gave a reasonable view of the ground around them. He received a warm welcome and passed on Toshak's message to Norvory while adding a few verbal comments.

Norvory read the message then sealed it again.

"Well, General Toshak assures us he's looking out for the pyluk and those men on the horse animals. We can expect some kind of attack before long, I'm sure."

"Indeed, Grys, the enemy can't accept the position he's in now. His back to the river with the tide coming in during the morning—it will put him in a very dangerous situation."

"And if I know General Toshak," added Colonel Flares, "he will be looking for a way to exploit that, and at first light, too."

"No doubt he will," said Thru. "He also asked me to study the ground here so I can inform him in detail about the situation on your front."

"Well, can't see much right now, but it will be dawn in an hour or so."

Thru surveyed the scene. On the immediate front, the ground was mostly open. A pattern of dark patches of bare rock mingled with lighter areas where mounds of shells had built up. Small trees, dwarf pines, and oaks were clustered here and there where they'd found suitable soil. About two hundred yards away, the trees thickened and the forest quickly reasserted itself. By three hundred yards out, the forest was a dark mass.

The regiments were lined up in three ranks, each consisting of two hundred with a mobile reserve of another hundred kept at the back, ready to plug gaps or assist if the regimental front was flanked.

"Looks perfect to me, almost like being on the parade ground."

"It's good ground for fighting, quite clear and open. If the enemy attacks us here, we will make him pay."

"What lies farther upstream?"

"It's all wild water for miles. No polder on the river Shell."

"So there are no roads either—"

Thru's rumination was interrupted by the resumption of the sullen, throbbing drum from the far side of the river.

"It begins again," said the Grys Norvory.

"It appears so. We must be ready for the worst."

Thru walked the length of the flank force position, studying the gulleys and hillocks that broke up the flatness of the plain. The three regiments were well placed on slightly higher ground. Between the left flank of the Ninth Regiment, placed closest to the river, and the right flank of the next regiment over, in the main army position, there was a gap of twenty yards, easily filled by reserves in the case of an attack. Looking along the line of the main army front, Thru dimly saw regiment after regiment in the darkness, waiting for the next move. Pennons flapped in the predawn breeze, but otherwise it was quiet on this side of the river.

The drums throbbed on, however.

On the right side of the flank position, farthest from the river, the Thirteenth Regiment filled the ground right up to the thickening forest that marked the beginning of the hillside.

Thru could find no fault with these dispositions. After a final chat with Norvory, he turned back and started up the hillside to Toshak's position.

The drum had been joined by a whistling sound, like that of a flute played off-key. It scratched and irritated the ears of all who heard it. Slowly it mounted in intensity.

Thru stared at the river. A mist was rising there, but beyond the dark masses of the enemy troops facing the lines of Toshak and Aeswiren's armies, it was impossible to see any detail or where the strange drumming and whistling was coming from.

He turned back to the trail. It was muddy and quite steep in places, and coming after all his exertions the day before and through the night, it made him aware of just how tired he was.

The whistling continued to rise in volume. As it mounted higher and higher, it approached the shriek of a boiling kettle. Thru knew that the noise must have become close to unbearable for the mots closer to the river, let alone the enemy formations beyond them.