Dragons of War (39 page)

Back on the high ledge, the mouse and the bird awaited the eagle with gathering impatience.

Cuica landed, settled, and tore up the rabbit with swift, certain strokes of beak and talon. He seized a morsel, bent over the mouse, and tried to engage it for feeding.

The mouse was not an eaglet, however, and it scurried back to a place of safety, emitting a most un-mouse-like stream of angry, high-pitched language.

The small bird fluttered up to the eagle's shoulder. Cuica almost snapped it up in his beak, but a sound in his ear interrupted his thought and his head swung away and back to the rabbit.

The preferred eagle method of ingestion, rapid gulps of the largest possible pieces was something Lagdalen tried not to participate in, but to no avail, her mind was intermingled with the fierce, implacable eagle mind. It ate, and she ate with it.

The wulfeagle was oblivious to all this. He was ravenously hungry, having sufficed on less than a rabbit a day for three days while covering an immense distance. He ripped, tore, and gobbled.

When he had finished, the mouse and the little bird resumed their positions, and Cuica launched once more into the cloudless sky above the Hazog. Moving west, they crossed the Ice Mountains and found themselves floating smoothly across the sere surface of the Inner Hazog. The terrain was flat, stark, covered only in skeleton weed and lichen. Not even the Hazogi tribes, who roamed the outer Hazog, came here unless summoned.

And yet there was evidence that a great many men came and went from this empty land. Beneath the eagle's wings now they saw roads, dead straight, arrowing into the west.

And then they glimpsed another line of dark, jagged mountains rising ahead of them, smaller peaks than those of the Ice range, dark, jagged: the Black Mountains. In the center of this range stood the horn of the Kakalon, the Dugush Vaal, and to this they flew until they crested above the horns of stone and flew down into the wedge-shaped valley of Padmasa.

In the center of the valley, dominating all, stood the massive block of the Square. As they drew closer Lagdalen became aware of an enormous presence, a palpable mentality emerging from that huge block of stone. It sought to detect intruders with a hunger that was frightening. Deep below that block lurked the great power. This was the center, the apex, the azimuth of its dark, hideous strength.

The eagle flew past the Square and then on, down the valley, past camel trains and staging areas for travelers. Feed trains, great teams of mules and horses, filled other roads as tribute from the western nations flowed to Padmasa.

Farther down there was a small crag some six hundred feet high. To this flew the eagle, lodging on an inaccessible ledge about a hundred feet below the top.

The mouse and the bird fed once more, stuffing themselves while conferring in rapid little bursts of squeaks and chirps. The lack of space in the tiny animal minds was made up for by an enormous acceleration in the pace of their thought. In each squeak and chirp were condensed the patterns of human language.

Only witches with the power of these two could communicate effectively from such tiny animantic familiars. None on Ryetelth were more skilled at animancy than Lessis of Valmes, unless it were Ribela of Defwode. Still, it required an immense effort to make the tiny brains of mouse and wren serve as communication nodes.

They discussed the options ahead of them and went over their plans for various contingencies.

The eagle flew off to hunt in the setting sun and found only some carrion, the remains of a camel. It chased off some vultures and pecked over the remains.

At dusk it returned to the ledge, unhappy and ready to return to its hunting grounds in Marneri. Lagdalen steadied the bird. Night fell, the moon rose. It grew cold there on the ledge. Cuica was used to cold, but he was hungry.

Then something caught the eagle's attention. Lagdalen saw with those magnificent eyes and glimpsed a speck flying across the moon. With a start, she realized it was miles away, and therefore very big indeed.

A memory from Ourdh came back, and she recalled the batrukh that had circled over Dzu on that terrible day a year before. The night passed slowly thereafter, and the eagle did not seem to sleep.

In the first light of dawn, the eagle lifted away and carried the two smaller animals down into the valley where it deposited them, not far from one of the paved staging areas that ringed the Square. Leaving the two tiny spies behind, Cuica skimmed away, staying low until he found an early thermal where he rose into the higher sky. Through the eagle's eyes, Lagdalen had a last glimpse of them, two tiny dots lost in the immensity of the wide valley.

The staging area was a rectangular space, like a parade ground, paved and inset with drains. In the center stood a squat single-story structure with a flat roof. A pair of imps patrolled the roof.

The mouse hid itself among loose rocks at the very edge of the pavement. The wren darted around the surrounding terrain, for perhaps a quarter of a mile in each direction, seeking information on approaching the Square of Padmasa.

The wren returned to the staging area and carefully worked her way to the mound of loose rock where the mouse hid. As she drew closer, she only moved when she was sure the imps were looking elsewhere. Even a small bird might be reported in such a place. The Masters of Padmasa were aware of the power of the witchly magic.

At length they were together crouching in the dark, two tiny embers of hope set against the dark mass of the city of the Masters.

They did not have long to wait. Soon they heard the rumble of approaching traffic. A train of wagons came first, laden with sacks of grain and hauled by teams of a dozen mules apiece. Kassimi mule skinners, dressed in furs and red turbans, sat atop. Behind them came a caravan from distant Czardha, two dozen or more camels, laden with the skilled manufactures of the Trucial States and Gelf.

From within the stone structure came a team of imps and a couple of men in the black uniform of Padmasa.

The wagons pulled up in a long row for inspection. The mule skinners clambered down and formed a group to one side, where they swigged from flasks and muttered together. No one liked this part of the journey. Being around imps was bad enough, they hated the squat, monstrous creatures, but here the damned imps were empowered to do what they liked to any man. You had to bow and scrape to them. Sometimes they would pick on a fellow, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

The imps inspected the cargoes of each wagon and every camel. They searched for contraband, and they made certain that no spies could slip by and get into the Square. However, they never noticed a solitary grey mouse that streaked over the cobblestones to the side of the fourth wagon in the line. The mouse leaped to the axle, then the top of the wheel, and vanished between the sacks of grain.

When they'd finished, the imps haughtily waved to the drovers. The men spat and shoved out their chests. An angry mumble began. The imps spat back and adjusted their swords. The men saw the movement. This was Padmasa. The men climbed back on their wagons and cracked their whips loudly to stir their mules.

The wagons rumbled back up the road. As they went, a tiny bird flitted onto the fourth wagon and found a perch on a high strut. No one noticed.

On they went over the last miles to the great gate of the Square. The land was utterly bare, almost featureless, a smooth upward slope of perhaps ten degrees to the structure standing on the crest.

As the eye approached the Square, so the sheer, colossal bulk of this single, brutal building became overpowering. It was intended to intimidate and succeeded. Even the eye of Lessis of Valmes was awed. She had seen many amazing things on this world, but never anything so harsh and yet so mighty. The labor to construct this architectural monstrosity— almost incalculable—Lessis marveled. Ribela was not so impressed.

"It is but a tiny reproduction of the Heptagon of Haddish. But it shows the scale of the ambition of our enemy. Their knowledge of the higher worlds is great already."

"Haddish?"

"One of the worlds of the Sauronlord Waakzaam."

"I have not heard of it."

"The Heptagon is the largest single structure built anywhere upon the sphere board of destiny." Ribela always knew these sort of things.

The wagon rumbled through the gate which was fifty yards wide and twice as tall. The gates were open but guarded by a regiment of imps, drawn up in squads to either side. Great pale-skinned trolls stood just inside the gates as a final line of defense.

It was a city as well as a fortress, a city of halls, tunnels, passages, and secret adits, a city with the desperate life and energy of a place of great wealth and repression.

The halls were great public places, with vast murals on two-hundred-foot high walls. The pavements were teeming with people from all over the world. The predominant color of dress was black, the uniform of one service or another of the power here. But there were also visitors from Czardha in their wools and tweeds, and there were Kassimi in colorful silks, and there were dark-skinned folk from the southern continent Eigo who wore white and ocher djellabas. There were even some exotic South Sea islanders, with their elaborate headdress and talking birds. Here and there carriages paused to discharge wealthy men and women clad in furs and silk, slave traders from every part of the world. Only they were allowed to wear furs within the Halls of Padmasa.

The wagon train rumbled down the center of the main entrance avenue. The sides were lined with shops where the products and services of the entire world were on sale.

Piercing the sides of the avenue were the entrances to commercial courtyards, where firms engaged in a single trade congregated. From one came the din of metalworking. From another the hum of business as gold and jewelry were bought and sold. The wagon train turned into a dark tunnel beneath a carved sheaf of wheat, gilt and gleaming, hanging over the entrance.

They entered a courtyard of granaries and stables. Great bins were groaning with sorghum and maize, which would be fed to meat animals in the outer reaches of the Tetralobe. Racks and lofts were stuffed with wheat, oats, rice, barley.

While teamsters worked their wagons into place, squads of human slaves unloaded grain and shifted it into the warehouse systems.

Their wagon came to a halt in a passage inside a warehouse. The mouse dropped to the cobbles and sneaked along the sidewall of the passage to a drain with a broken grate. In a moment the mouse was safe inside. It reconnoitered and then briefly showed itself.

A moment later the wren flew into the drain.

For a moment they paused. Wren looked to mouse. They were inside the Square.

Three thousand miles eastward of Padmasa, in the Tower of Swallows in Andiquant, the Imperial Council met to hear a new report on the situation in the Argonath.

Emperor Pascal Iturgio Densen Asturi had aged in the days and weeks since the news of the invasion had come. His hair had gone almost white. He had lost weight. There was a haggard look in his eyes. He worked without pause, doing everything he could to accelerate the Imperial response to the invasion of the Argonath.

Valembre had repeatedly begged the emperor to rest. His health was more important to the empire at this moment than any amount of planning after the fact. There was a response mounting to the invasion. Things had moved smoothly, in fact. The weather had been cooperative, allowing for rapid movements of troops.

Even Master Garsk of the bureaucracy had been encouraged to perform prodigies of organization and efficiency.

Still, the emperor cursed himself for his blindness. He had wanted so much to launch the great mission to Czardha, he had discounted the likelihood of such an enormous invasion host.

When all were present, with Irene, the Queen of Oceans, sitting in for Lessis of Valmes, the emperor called on General Hektor.

Hektor had a long face. The situation in the Argonath was daily growing more dangerous.

"First, I will tell you the worst. We expect an invasion of Arneis to be imminent. The town of Cujac will be the first to fall."

"Have we lost hope of holding the High Pass?" said Sausann.

"When you consider the size of the enormous force the enemy brought to bear and the relatively tiny band of defenders, we can only expect the worst. They might have held for a few days, but once the enemy brought his strength to bear, he would surely have prevailed."

"Ah, surely not," said Sausann. "I have no appetite for this endless tale of mistakes and tragedies. First Fort Redor, then the High Pass."

"The garrison there has been downgraded over the years of peace. We never dreamed that an assault could reach the pass so swiftly. In consequence, we were unable to reinforce the garrison there quickly enough. We have been a half step behind the enemy at every stroke."

"We have always been so well served with intelligence in the past." Sausann looked across the table to the seat where Lessis normally sat.

Irene of Alaf colored in anger.

"No one should cast aspersions upon the Office of Unusual Insight. The office has performed prodigies in providing information about our enemies. It was not the Office of Insight that reduced the level of readiness in Kenor or allowed Kadein to stand down its Second Legion."

Now Sausann flushed, too honest not to. She had pushed the emperor's plan. She had seen it as a way of somehow fulfilling her career, of turning the tide against the great enemy and thus opening her way to a graceful retirement into the mystic. She had fought to find the funds for it from the legion budget.

They were all silent. There had been plenty of failures, enough to go around. But the thought of the Office of Unusual Insight inevitably brought their thoughts to the two absent witches from the council.

The emperor compressed his lips for a moment.

"We are all thinking the same thing, I know it. Where are they? Are they safe? Can they possibly succeed?"

Everyone agreed, and for a moment their thoughts turned to the far west. Lessis and Ribela had gone into the very heart of the enemy's strength. With them went their hopes.