Brotherhood of the Wolf (48 page)

He stood for a moment, feeling weak. His tunic was wet from the mist, so drenched that he took it off and wrung it out, letting the water spill into the dirt at his feet. Then he put his tunic on and trundled back into that damned fog, wondering if perhaps he'd see better if he carried a torch.

Hours later, he found himself again outside the fog, and outside Carris, to the west this time. Now it was late afternoon.

He gritted his teeth and went back under that infernal oppressive cloud, into the gloom, vowing to watch his feet more carefully.

He had not gone far, perhaps two miles, when he heard a bell chime six times, off to his left. It was getting late, and Roland realized that a message he should have delivered shortly after dawn had been delayed now till evening. He'd spent the day wandering through this fog.

He soon found a road heading left, and after a mile was greeted by the happy sounds of castle life: the ring of hammers on mail, the curses of some lord who demanded that the vassals secure the hoardings to the castle walls, roosters crowing at the last rays of daylight.

More than all of that, he heard the sounds of crows cawing,
and pigeons cooing, and gulls shrieking in the air above him.

Allowing his ears to guide him toward the city, he found a narrow road that led out to a causeway. He knew he was on a causeway because he could hear water lapping at both sides of the road, and the fog had suddenly begun to smell of algae.

At last he reached a barbican, an enormous stone gate set in front of the road.

The fog was so thick that when he approached the gate, no guards hailed him, for they could see him no better than he could see the castle.

“Is anyone there?” Roland called.

A booming voice laughed from overhead, atop the barbican. “There's about a million of us here, good fellow. Searching for anyone in particular?”

“I've a message for Duke Paldane,” Roland said, feeling foolish. “A message from Baron Haberd of Keep Haberd.”

“Well, come to the side gate, man, so we can have a look at you!”

Roland followed the huge iron gate to the right, found only a narrow tower with archer's slots above and some holes for pikemen to attack through. He peered into one of the holes, and could see into the tower. Torches burned there, and at least twenty men in armor sat inside. An ignorant-looking fellow playfully thrust his pike at Roland and shouted, “Woo!”

Roland followed the iron gate back to the left, found a small portcullis with several guardsmen waiting for him. In the fog, Roland could not see much of them, only shadowy shapes.

“Sorry,” Roland said. “I can't see my own damned feet in this fog.”

“I'll give the wizards your compliments,” the captain of the guard said. He took Roland's message pouch, inspected the seal. “This seal has been broken.”

“I'm not a messenger myself,” Roland admitted. “I found
the messenger dead on the road, and brought the pouch. I had to open it to know where to deliver it.”

“Smart fellow,” the captain of the guard said.

He opened the portcullis gate and urged Roland onto the drawbridge, to a second barbican, then a third. Each barbican was successively more heavily guarded. Men with warhammers and pikes were stationed below, while archers and artillery threatened from above.

The fog was so dense, Roland could not see the water on either side of the bridges, though he smelled it and heard it lapping against the piles.

Walking through the fog for mile after mile, Roland had begun to worry that the castle was totally undefended. He'd not seen so much as a single guard posted on the roads.

Once he got inside, it became obvious that men were everywhere. Knights by the thousand bivouacked down in the bailey, and the walls crawled with troops.

But it was not until he got past the bailey, into the walled city of Carris proper, that he began to realize how many people had fled here. When the guard on the wall had said, “there's about a million of us,” Roland had known he was jesting.

Still, Carris was a large island, as he'd seen from afar. Numerous towers jutted up from the walls, and the defenses inside Carris included dozens of walled manors and fortresses. The streets were full of urchins getting underfoot, serious-looking women rushing hither and thither, and men-at-arms swarming everywhere.

Crows and gulls and pigeons perched at every rooftop. Smelly goats nibbled at low-hanging laundry; nervous chickens ran underfoot; geese waddled about honking; horses whinnied in the stables, while yellow cows merely squatted in the road.

So many people and beasts in such close quarters caused a fetid smell. Even after only a few minutes of walking through the stench, Roland longed to escape to a tower or castle wall—or better yet, return to the road far from here and join Averan and the green lady.

The guards escorted him up through the city, into the main bailey of Castle Carris itself, and from there to the Duke's Keep—an enormous tower that rose above all others.

The furnishings in the keep were as rich as any king's. The wood on every doorpost and chair and table was oiled to a shine. The decorative brass lamp holders on each wall were covered with costly glass hoods out of Ashoven. The carpets were rich underfoot, and the plaster walls had been nicely painted with fields of red poppies.

The Duke, a crafty-looking fellow with a triangular face, was cloistered in the uppermost tower, surrounded by counselors whom Roland recognized. They were men who had granted endowments of wit to King Orden and had been Restored at the Blue Tower a week before.

With a nod toward the King's messenger standing nearby, one of the counselors said, “If the Earth King has ordered us to flee, then we must flee.”

But Duke Paldane slammed his fist on an oak table. “It's too late,” he said. “I have four hundred thousand civilians in my care, and Raj Ahten's troops surround us. I can't ask them to
flee
out onto the plains, where his Invincibles will cut them down for sport.”

The old counselor Jerimas shook his hoary head. “I don't like it. If the Earth King has warned us, we should listen, my Duke.”

“Listen to what?” Paldane asked. “He has given us no direction. Flee? Flee where? How? When? From what?”

“You act as if you think the walls of Carris can protect us,” old Jerimas said. “You put great faith in stone, even after all that has happened. Perhaps you should put faith in your King.”

“I have faith in my King,” Paldane argued. “But why does he burden me with contradictory commands?”

The counselors looked worried. Roland could see that they had too many questions and not enough answers. They looked as if they were already beaten.

The Duke glanced up, saw Roland, and his mouth
dropped in surprise. “Sir Borenson? What are you doing here? Do you bring further direction from the King?”

“No,” Roland said. “I'm not Sir Borenson, though we are kin.”

Roland handed the message case to the Duke, who unrolled the parchment, glanced at it distractedly, and then handed it back to Roland with a curt “Thank you.”

Reavers had overrun Keep Haberd, and Duke Paldane did not bat an eye.

“Milord?” Roland asked.

“I know,” the Duke said. “Baron Poll brought the same message hours ago. There's nothing for it. We're under siege here, and the King's messengers simply ask me to flee!”

“Siege, milord?” Roland asked in surprise. Raj Ahten had not moved siege engines near the walls. Indeed, he seemed to have no troops within miles.

“Siege,” the Duke said, as if Roland were simpleminded.

“Milord,” Roland asked. “I was hoping to leave the castle. I have some friends hidden to the south, a young girl who needs me.” He wanted to plead for license to become Averan's guardian, but knew that this was not the time.

The Duke considered for half a second. “No one leaves. It's too dangerous, and with the Blue Tower destroyed, our walls are hopelessly undermanned.”

“Destroyed?” Roland asked, unsure he'd heard right.

The Duke nodded solemnly. “Every stone is down.”

Roland choked back a cry of astonishment. He'd served as a Dedicate in the Blue Tower for twenty years. He might have been killed in his sleep there. He had escaped just in time.

But without force soldiers to man the walls of Carris, he realized, those who died in the Blue Tower might be the lucky ones. “How did it fall?” Roland dared to ask.

Paldane shrugged. “I don't know, but as far as we can tell, four hours ago, everyone in the tower was killed.” He studied Roland with a critical eye. “You look like a Borenson. Tell me, have you any training in war?”

“I am a butcher by trade, milord.”

Duke Paldane grunted, noted the half-sword tucked into his belt. “Now you're a guardsman. You'll take the south wall—between towers fifty-one and fifty-two. Gut any man or beast that comes over the wall. Understand? We'll be down to knife-work here before daybreak, and a butcher will be of use to me on the wall.”

Roland stood, dumbfounded, until a squire led him to his post.

28
A PLOT UNMASKED

By the time Erin Connal reached Castle Groverman on the banks of the Wind River, she felt no desire to celebrate. True, Gaborn had wakened from his faint an hour before and given the good news: The Darkling Glory was dead—or at least disembodied, made much less dangerous.

But Erin had been left horseless, and Prince Celinor had been injured by a falling brand. The skin on the back of his neck had burned and bubbled. With his endowments of stamina, the Prince would live, but he'd not have an easy recovery. By the time Erin had dragged him from under the burning logs, the pain of his wounds had Celinor gibbering and weeping like a child. He'd fallen unconscious shortly afterward, and so had been carried behind the saddle of one of Duke Groverman's men, and had gotten lost from Erin's sight during the ride.

Erin rode behind a knight from Jonnick into the bailey outside Duke Groverman's keep. Upon entering, she learned that she was not the first to arrive at the keep—far from it.

Hundreds of knights had already arrived and were feasting. Groverman's servants had brought baskets with loaves of bread into the bailey and dispensed the food freely while
a serving woman opened flasks of ale. A great bank of fires lined the east wall, where cooking boys turned whole calves on spits. Minstrels played from a balcony of the Duke's Keep, and a crier beside the city gate welcomed them by shouting, “Eat your fill, gentleman. Eat your fill!”

The Duke spared nothing for the Earth King's army. But Erin was not yet ready to eat.

She went to find Celinor. Duke Groverman's men had laid him on a saddle blanket near a dark wall of the keep. Moonflowers grew along the wall, and now their pale white blossoms opened wide to the night air and the moths that fed on their nectar. A well-intentioned soldier was hunched over Celinor, trying to force whiskey down his throat.

“Drink, good sirrah,” the knight said. “It will ease your pain.”

But Celinor clenched his teeth, and, with tears of pain in his eyes, turned his head away. The knight tried to wrestle Celinor's head around, to force him to drink, obviously believing that the Prince was delirious.

“I'll have at him,” Erin said, urging the knight to leave. “He'll take the poppy better.”

“Perhaps,” the knight said, “though I don't know why he'd prefer a bitter poppy to sweet whiskey.”

“Find a physic and ask for the poppy,” Erin said wearily, and she knelt by Celinor, brushed his brow. He was sweating, and looked up at her with pain-filled eyes.

“Thank you,” he managed to whisper.

The Earth King had bidden him to put aside strong drink. Now Erin saw that he really would avoid it at any cost. “It's nothing,” she told Celinor, then she held him a moment. He seemed to sleep.

At times he spoke deliriously, as if in evil dreams. Once he shouted and tried to push her away.