Anna von Wessen (44 page)

XLIV:

War

T
he Weld arrived next night at Drelho, while Wolach proceeded still from the South. The former stationed themselves round the castle straightaway, for night had already fallen, and they were ready to attack.

While the wolves held the ranks, Xeros came up with Leventh and Dio Constantín, to meet with Anna and Vaya. The latter pair had been watching vigilantly, and took note of their friends’ arrival directly. But hardly had they even had a chance to speak to one another, when they heard of a sudden the very quietest footstep, in the brambles beyond their little clearing. Though by the time they leapt to inspect the spot, it was empty, they knew well enough that they had been sighted.

“It’s no matter,” said old Xeros, whose back was bent from the journey, and whose breath rasped alarmingly in his throat. A little time ago, upon the night that Vaya visited him after Anna was abducted by Esa, we said that he was not young; but we said also that he was not so very old. The strain of past days, however, coupled with the doubt of the coming hours, seemed to throw very suddenly almost twenty years upon his person. But he stood firm, and appeared no less prepared than one of youth and health could be. “We cannot penetrate the castle yet,” he said. “They must come to us.”

They five retreated, then, into the forward line of the Narken. Here, and ranged behind, there were one-thousand-and-a-half terrible wolves, who looked as though they might, if they tried, make enough noise to rouse the sleepers on the opposite side of the globe, but who crouched perfectly silent in the midst of the mighty trees of the New Forest. The silence was unbroken. Whatever animals may have dwelt round about only recently, had fled at the approach of the wolves, and the place seemed as little more than a vast wooden grave. The moon worked its face through the leafy roof, and shone down upon many a snout, paw, or silver eye. But these things, under its light, seemed as little more than parts of fixed statues, carved long ago, and left whole years through the cold and rain, only to wait for this night.

They had not been mistaken, when they guessed they had spotted a spy. This was one of a goodly number, all of whom had been positioned round the castle, but had not suspected that anything was amiss, till the last of the wolves arrived, and this single Lumarian viewed Anna and Vaya themselves, standing with King Xeros. After she had seen this, the spy rounded up her companions. Their commander – a four-hundred-year-old Lumarian named Ugo – then ordered them posted at a little distance from the place where they thought the wolves to be (though try as they might, they could not make out their dark furs in the surrounding night), while he himself shifted to the royal chamber to tell Ephram what had come.

Of course, detailed plans had been traced already on both sides, which answered for any combination of conditions and circumstances. When Ephram learnt that all the Weld was standing directly outside his castle at that very moment, he turned gravely to Koro; and they both nodded. Then Ephram called two Lumaria – only two – towards his throne.

“Greyson Menuch,” he said, “and Clyde Whist. Come hither.”

The two fellows started up in a fright, and needed exert every ounce of courage they possessed, in order to do as Ephram bade. They arrived trembling before the throne
– one tall and one not, and different in appearance in almost every way, save for that in which they both seemed, at present, quite pathetic. Quivering and quaking where they stood, with their eyes swollen and popping from lack of sleep, and their black-and-copper shocks of hair standing absolutely on end, from having had twenty fingers run through them any number of times over past days, they made Ephram two very awkward bows.

“Dear boys,” said Ephram. “Can you guess why I have called you to me?”

They shook their heads emphatically.

“Really?” said Ephram. “No idea at all? Well, no matter. There is something, you see, which I wish you to do for me. Though you look rather dishevelled and weary at the moment – do you think it possible, that you might do this thing for me?”

Their shaking heads began immediately to nod.

“Good!” said Ephram. “Now – if you truly care for your friends, go and bring them home! You know they stand without this castle, at this very moment!
Tell them that if they come to me, I’ll forget everything they have done, and sit them beside me as I used to do. If you
don’t
have their best interests at heart, and intend only to betray me, well – I’ll not suffer much by the loss of two such useless fools as yourselves.”

There went a tremor of mocking laughter through the crowd. All in an instant Greyson’s and Clyde’s fear began to dissolve, and they looked round angrily. They did not hesitate to gaze scornfully into the nearest faces, and to defy them wordlessly. The laughter quickly ceased.

“Go, then!” Ephram ordered them. “Do your duty, Lumaria.”

Clyde looked directly into Ephram’s stoney eye, and did not quaver. “How are we to find them?” he asked.

“Ugo will accompany you. Ugo! Show these good fellows where you left them.”

Ugo came forward, and with him Greyson and Clyde shifted from the castle. They came to the place where Ugo’s guards were gathered, and looked questioningly to Ugo.

“Go ahead a few paces,” said Ugo, “and call to them.”

They glanced at one another doubtfully (not because they had come to fear their friends at all, but rather because they knew themselves to be surrounded by a very large number of less-than-contented Narken, who owed them no allegiance, and who would surely very much favour the feel of their thin necks between their jaws), but stepped forth nonetheless, and kept on till a short growl sounded just ahead of them. They halted with wide eyes, and fell back several feet.

“Anna?” said Greyson.

“Vaya?” said Clyde.

Anna’s voice sounded from a little way off, and bade them come nearer.

“How near?” they asked in unison.

“Fifty yards.”

They did as they were told. But even as they moved, their sharp eyes could make out nothing but the trees all around. They came to a stop about where they thought it proper, and waited.

Suddenly a small shining spot appeared before them – and sure enough it was Anna, with a lighter in her hand, in human form so as not to frighten them, and with Vaya’s armoured war cloak covering her. Greyson and Clyde gave twin shrieks, and nearly fainted straightaway; for their first sight was that of many hundreds of Narken grouped round them, and watching them carefully. They were separated from Ugo’s guards, by a very solid wall of wolves.

But then Vaya came forward to stand beside Anna, and together they smiled at their friends. Clyde’s face began to glow, just as brightly and quickly as the lighter had done, and he stepped up directly to embrace Vaya. But Greyson watched Anna with narrowed eyes.

“What’s the matter, Greyson?” Anna asked him, as her smile began to fade. “Do you love me no more, now you know what I am?”

Greyson’s face softened in an instant. “Oh, no!” he exclaimed. “That’s not it at all. It’s only –” (he glanced, rather terrified, at the wolves, and then moved swiftly to whisper into Anna’s ear) “– it’s only that you needn’t do this! If you come back now, Ephram says –”

“Ephram is a liar!” Anna shouted.
“He has forgotten everything he ever was, every small shred of good he may have ever believed, because he cannot have what he wants. Go back to him, if you wish!”

Greyson’s lip quivered, and he looked much like a child who wanted to cry, but could not. He sprang forward to throw his arms around Anna.

~

When Ugo returned with an account of what he had seen, Koro looked almost with an expression of boredom towards Ephram, and stated dryly, “It seems they have defected, my friend – and we will not be mounting their tempters’ heads upon our wall, in these next few minutes at least. But we should have known they would not believe your false promises! It’s time to begin the battle.”

Ephram answered him nothing; but merely sat gazing straight ahead of himself, hearing nothing, and seeing nothing.

Meanwhile the Narken held their ground in the wood. There were numbers of them pointed towards every direction of the compass, so that no Lumarian should take them by surprise. Thanks be to God, the Endai had begun to arrive just as Greyson and Clyde did, and even now were trickling steadily down from the North, to merge their own lines with that of the Weld. Balkyr came to meet with Xeros, and Dahro’s people came to stand with Anna’s little host. She and Vaya nodded to Nessa and Ceir, and acknowledged a number of others they did not know, who were a part of Dahro’s house from Louisiana. But as more and more arrived, the individuals began to blend into the throng on all sides, till it was all Anna could do to keep Vaya just on her left, Greyson and Clyde just behind her, and her father in the corner of her eye.

Still Ugo’s band was lingering just before them; and because Anna and Vaya had fought much longer in Ephram’s good graces, than out of them, they knew very well what he would do. When the thing was ready to begin in earnest, he would send his first brigade, some hundreds strong, out to join with Ugo. Then they would rush the wolves. Depending on the success of this onslaught, he would measure his second wave accordingly.

But Anna and Vaya hoped very much that he did not guess what
they
would do. They would fight through the first wave, and judge according to their comrades’ positions in the midst of the second, as to the precise moment that they would shift to the castle, to attack from within. Aeras would do no good this time. The space to be protected was too vast.

Talk amongst the wolves had died down, and the wood was filled once again with a grim and eerie silence. Not a single breath could be heard. They were formed in nearly a score of rings that grew successively larger, one inside the other like a tight spiral, so that the Lumaria could not shift into their very midst (as they would certainly try to do) and take them unawares. Despite their many protests, Anna shoved Greyson and Clyde back into the centre rings, while she and Vaya maintained the front of the outer circle, where the heaviest blow would fall. Standing round them were the strongest of both the Narken and the Endai.

In this well-drawn fashion, then, they awaited the fall of the axe. Clouds rolled over the moon, and remained fixed there in a most stubborn manner, so that pitch darkness came to mingle with the quiet. It was in this deaf and blind atmosphere that the first war cries were heard.

Very suddenly there came a nearly imperceptible glimmer of movement, and a flash of eyes shining yellow in the black night, which caught Vaya’s attention before it did Anna’s. She raised her voice in warning, and the front line turned in the direction she indicated. In this way Ugo’s first strike was neither so secret nor so stealthy as he might have wished; but his every soldier was fully reckoned with, and their crafty blows were warded away almost effortlessly by a host of powerful teeth and claws. Present among them was old Golkin, who came on without pause, and with fire in his eyes, against those he considered responsible for the death of Ilsa. But he was stricken with grief; and that was a feeling familiar to Anna. She remembered, too, how kind he had been, and that she would have wanted none other for Greyson’s gaoler. So she killed him quickly, and without dealing pain.

Ephram’s test subjects, numbering at about five hundred, had little chance against the discipline, strength, and passion of the sea into which they fell, whose individual drops tallied at nearly five-thousand-and-a-half. We may applaud, and cheer in triumph – who would not? – but do not forget that these fifty-five hundred were due to war with fifteen thousand; not five hundred. And these fifteen thousand, as we know, were both swifter and stronger than they. They hadn’t the numbers, and they hadn’t the upper hand. But they cleared away Ugo’s clutter as if it were all they should be forced to contend with – and one of the very swiftest wolves present, whose name was Lira, even went to chase down Ugo himself, and caught him between her paws in mid-shift. There were none left to flee to Ephram, and wail to him their tale of woe. So the wolves reconstructed their discordant ranks, and fell to waiting as before, with some of their own nursing fractured bones and bleeding skins, but not a single casualty.

Truthfully, Ephram was very surprised by Ugo’s failure to return. Ever so slightly uneasy, then, he sent out a party twice as large as the last. You may not believe us when we tell you this – but only three (a single three; not three hundred, not three score, and not three dozen) came back.

With his army depleted by fifteen hundred, he sat contemplating for a while. Soon all manner of constructive thought had disappeared, and he appeared merely to be brooding darkly. But quite of a sudden his head snapped up, and he cried out, “A different approach! There is no sense in sending you out to be incrementally slaughtered. Therefore half of you will go.”

“A whole half?” asked Josev in astonishment. “But then the castle will be –”

“I know very well what the castle will be, Josev, thank you!” cried Ephram. But he composed himself quickly, turned to an armoured Lumarian on his right, and said, “Send out the half of your choosing, Lewig. Lead them yourself.”

This fellow nodded stiffly, and went down into the crowd to begin rounding up the brigades which he had earlier sorted himself. Of course he had not suspected that he would be taking so many of them (nearly a dozen) at one time; but he proposed no question to counter Ephram’s order. Next moment, he had disappeared with nearly seven thousand Lumaria. Koro and Abrast sat calmly on Ephram’s either hand, almost smiling to themselves.