The Chernagor Pirates (61 page)

Heavy iron grills covered all the windows. Thick ironbound gates warded the entranceways. Towers full of archers rose from the roofs. “We'll have to knock it down with catapults or burn it down,” Grus said in dismay. “Just taking it won't be too easy.”

From inside, someone was shouting furiously. Pozvizd pointed. “That Vasilko,” he said. “He yell for more soldiers. He say, somebody pay, he not get more.”

“I hope he'll be the one who pays,” Grus said.

Another voice came from the residence-turned-citadel—one not as loud, but full of authority. Pterocles stiffened. “That is a wizard,” he said. “I know the serpent by its fangs. That man has power—some of his own, and some he can call upon from … elsewhere.”

The Banished One. He means the Banished One, even if he doesn't care to say the name,
Grus thought. Quietly, he asked, “Can you meet him?”

Pterocles shrugged. “We'll find out, won't we? Right now, he hardly seems aware of me. He's worried about how to keep Nishevatz from falling.”

“A little late for that, wouldn't you say?” Grus asked.

“I think so,” Pterocles answered, “but I know more about what's going on inside the city than … he does.” The wizard stiffened. He pointed to a second-story window. “There he is!”

He didn't mean the Banished One now. He meant the Chernagor wizard. Grus couldn't have told the sorcerer from any other Chernagor—a burly, bearded man in a mailshirt. He wasn't even sure he was looking in the right window. But Pterocles seemed very sure. He flung up an arm and gasped out a counterspell.

“Are you all right?” Grus asked.

“He's strong,” the wizard answered. “He's very strong. And he's drawing on more power than he owns. It's … him, sure enough.”

“Him? Oh,” Grus said. Pterocles had confused him for a moment. The Banished One hadn't paid much attention to the siege of Nishevatz. The civil war between Korkut and Sanjar had kept him occupied closer to home. How much could he do, intervening at the last minute?
We're going to find out,
Grus thought.

Pterocles staggered, as though someone had hit him hard. He used another counterspell. This one sounded more potent—or more desperate—than the first. If he could do nothing but defend … How long until he couldn't defend anymore, until the Chernagor sorcerer, aided by power from the Banished One, emptied and crushed him yet again?

“Hang on,” Grus said. “I'll find a way out of this for you.”

“How do you propose to manage that?” Pterocles panted. “Will you call down the gods from the heavens to fight on my side?”

“No, but I'll come up with something else,” Grus said. The wizard snorted, obviously not believing a word of that. For a moment, Grus didn't know what he could do to make good on his promise. Then he shouted for a squadron of archers. He pointed to the window where the Chernagor wizard looked out. “Kill me that man!” he said. “Second story, third window from the left.”

The bowmen didn't ask questions. They just said, “Yes, Your Majesty,” took arrows from their quivers, and let fly. Not content with one shot apiece, they kept at it, sending scores of shafts at the window. A man with even an ordinary sense of self-preservation would have moved away from his dangerous position as soon as the arrows started flying. Infused with force from the Banished One, Vasilko's sorcerer stayed where he was. To him, destroying Pterocles must have seemed more important than anything else, even life itself.

But then he staggered back not because he wanted to but because he had to. A pair of arrows had struck him in the chest, less than a hand's breadth apart. “Well done!” Grus shouted. “You'll all have a reward for that!”

Pterocles, who had been bending like a sapling in a gale, suddenly straightened. “He stopped, Your Majesty,” the wizard said, more than a little amazement in his voice. “He just … stopped. How did you do that? You're no sorcerer.”

“Maybe not, but I know one magic trick,” Grus replied. “Shoot a man a couple of times, and he's a lot less interested in wizardry than he was before.”

Pterocles took a moment to think that over and, very visibly, to gather strength. “I see,” he said at last. “That's—a less elegant solution than I would have come up with, I think.”

Lanius would have said the same thing,
Grus thought.
Some people are perfectionists. As for me …
“I don't care whether it's elegant or not. All I care about is whether it works, and you can't very well argue about that.”

“No, Your Majesty, that's true.” Pterocles seemed to realize something more might be called for. “And thank you.”

“You're welcome,” the king answered. “I presume that was Vasilko's best wizard. Now we have to find out whether he has any others the Banished One wants to try to use.”

“Yes.” Pterocles looked as though he wished Grus hadn't thought of that.

Meanwhile, though, more and more Avornan soldiers flooded into the square around the building Vasilko was using for a citadel. Grus didn't think it could hold out too much longer. Even with the additions and improvements the Chernagors had made to it, it hadn't been built as a fortress. Sooner or later, the Avornans would find a way to break in or to set it afire—and that would be the end for Prince Vsevolod's unloving and unloved son.

But then the entrance to the stronghold flew open. Out burst a swarm of Chernagors. They were roaring like lions, some wordlessly, others bawling out Prince Vasilko's name. The Avornans rushed to meet them. Vasilko must have seen the same thing Grus had—his citadel would not hold. Since it would not, why not sally forth to conquer or die?

That made a certain amount of sense in the abstract. Grus had perhaps half a dozen heartbeats to think of it in the abstract. Then he realized that swarm of Chernagors, Prince Vasilko at their head, was rushing straight toward him. If he went down under their swords and spears, he wouldn't much care what happened in the rest of the fight for Nishevatz. No, that wasn't true—if he went down, he wouldn't care at all.

“Rally to me!” he shouted to the Avornans in the square. “Rally to me and throw them back. We can do it!” He pulled his sword from its scabbard.

So did Pterocles beside him. The wizard probably had only the vaguest idea what to do with an unsorcerous weapon. Eyeing the Chernagors and how young and fresh and fierce they looked, Grus remembered every one of his own years, too.
How long can I last against an onslaught like this?

He didn't have to find out on the instant, for his guardsmen sprang out in front of him and took the brunt of the Chernagor onslaught. Several of them fell, but they also brought down even more of Vasilko's men. Yet still more Chernagors pushed forward. Yelling and cursing, the surviving bodyguards met them head-on. By then, Grus was in the fight, too, slashing at a Chernagor who had more ferocity than skill.

The king's blade bit. The Chernagor reeled back with a shriek, clutching a gashed forearm. Grus knew a certain somber pride. He could still hold his own against a younger foe. For a while he could, anyhow. But the younger men could keep on going long after he flagged.

“Vasilko!” roared the Chernagors.

“Grus!” the royal guardsmen shouted back. Pterocles took a roundhouse swipe at one of Vasilko's men. He missed. But then he tackled the Chernagor. Grus' sword came down on the man's neck. Blood fountained. The Chernagor's body convulsed, then went limp.

“Are you all right?” Grus asked Pterocles, hauling him to his feet.

“I—think so,” the wizard answered shakily. Then they were both fighting for their lives, too busy and too desperate to talk.

More Avornan soldiers rushed up to reinforce the bodyguards. The archers who'd hit the Chernagor wizard poured volley after volley into Vasilko's henchmen. The Chernagors had few archers with whom to reply. Those whistling shafts tore the heart out of their charge. Their shouts changed to cries of despair as they realized they weren't going to be able to break free.

There was Vasilko himself, swinging a two-handed sword as though it were a willow wand. He spotted Grus and hacked his way toward him. “I may die,” Vsevolod's son shouted in Avornan, “but I'll make the Fallen Star a present of your soul!”

“By the gods in the heavens, you won't!” Grus rushed toward Vasilko. Only later did he wonder whether that was a good idea. At the time, he didn't seem able to do anything else.

Vasilko's first cut almost knocked Grus' sword out of his hand. Vsevolod had been a big, strong man, and his son was no smaller, but the power Vasilko displayed hardly seemed natural. The Banished One had lent the Chernagor wizard one kind of strength. Could he give Vasilko a different sort? Grus had no idea whether that was possible, but he thought so by the way the usurping prince handled his big, heavy blade.

Grus managed to beat the slash aside, and answered with a cut of his own. Vasilko parried with contemptuous ease; by the way he handled it, that two-handed sword might have weighed nothing at all. His next attack again jolted Grus from both speed and power.
Am I getting old that fast?
the king wondered.

“Steal my throne, will you?” Vasilko shouted. Even his voice seemed louder and deeper than a man's voice had any business being.

“You stole it to begin with,” Grus panted.

Vasilko showered him with what had to be curses in the Chernagor language. He swung his sword again with that same superhuman strength. Grus' blade went flying. Vasilko roared in triumph. He brought up the two-handed sword to finish the king. Grus leaped close and seized his right wrist with both hands. It was like grappling with a bronze statue that had come to ferocious, malevolent life. He knew he wouldn't be able to hold on long, and knew he would be sorry when he could hold on no more.

Then Pterocles pointed his index finger at Vasilko and shouted out a hasty spell. Vasilko shouted, too, in shock and fury. All of a sudden, his voice was no more than a man's. All of a sudden, the wrist Grus fought desperately to hold might have been made from flesh and blood, not animate metal.

Pterocles grabbed Vasilko around the knees. The usurping Prince of Nishevatz fell to the cobbles. Grus hadn't been sure Vasilko could fall. He kicked the Chernagor in the head. When Vasilko kept on wrestling with Pterocles after Grus kicked him the first time, he did it again. Pain shot through his foot. Bleeding from the temple and the nose, Vasilko groaned and went limp.

“Thanks again, Your Majesty,” Pterocles said, scrambling to his feet.

“Thank
you,”
Grus answered. “I thought I was gone there. What did you do?”

“Blocked the extra strength the Banished One was feeding Vasilko,” the wizard said. “Let's get him tied up—or chained, better still. I don't know how long the spell will hold. I wasn't sure it would hold at all, but I thought I'd better try it.” He looked down at Vasilko. “Scrambling his brains there will probably stretch it out a bit.”

“Good!” Grus exclaimed. “He was going to do worse than that to me. Now let's see what the rest of these bastards feel like doing.”

With their leader captive, most of the Chernagors who'd sallied from the citadel threw down their weapons and raised their hands in surrender. A stubborn handful fought to the end. They shouted something in their own language, over and over again.

Before long, Grus found a Chernagor who admitted to speaking Avornan. “What are they yelling about?” he asked.

“They cry for Fallen Star,” the Chernagor answered. “You know who is Fallen Star?”

“Oh, yes. I know who the Fallen Star is,” Grus said grimly. “The Menteshe give the Banished One that name, too. But the Menteshe have always followed him. You Chernagors know the worship of the gods in the heavens.”

The prisoner shrugged. “Fallen Star is strong power. We stay with strong power.”

“Not strong enough,” Grus said. The Chernagor shrugged again. Grus pointed at him. “If the Banished One is so strong and the gods in the heavens are so weak, how did we take Nishevatz?”

“Luck,” the Chernagor said with another shrug. Grus almost hit him. There were none so stubborn as those who would not see. But then the king saw how troubled the man who had followed Vasilko looked. Maybe the Chernagor wouldn't admit it, but Grus thought his question had struck home.

He jerked a thumb at the guards who'd brought the prisoner before him. “Take this fellow away and put him back with his friends.” The Avornans led off the Chernagor, none too gently. Grus hoped the captive would infect his countrymen with doubt.

Hirundo came up to Grus and saluted. “Well, Your Majesty, we've got this town,” he said, and paused to dab at a cut on his cheeks with a rag as grimy as the hand that held it. Looking around, he made a sour face. “Now that I'm actually inside, I'm not so sure why we ever wanted it in the first place.”

“We wanted it because the Banished One had it, and because he could make a nuisance of himself if he hung on to it. Now we've got it, and we've got Vasilko”—the king pointed to the deposed usurper, who wore enough chains to hold down a horse—“and I may have a broken toe.”

“A broken toe? I don't follow,” Hirundo said. “And what's Vasilko's problem? He looks like he can't tell yesterday from turnips.”

Vasilko had regained consciousness, but he did indeed look as though he didn't know what to do with it now that he had it. “Maybe I kicked him in the head too hard,” Grus answered. “That's how I hurt my toe, too—kicking him in the head.”

“Well, if you had to do it, you did it for a good reason,” Hirundo observed.

“Easy for you to say,” Grus snapped. “And do you know what the healers will do for me? Not a thing, that's what. I broke a toe once, years ago, trying to walk through a door instead of a doorway. They told me, ‘If we put a splint on it, it will heal in six weeks. If we don't, it will take a month and a half.' And so they didn't—and they won't.”