One for the Morning Glory (18 page)

The sound that made hearts sink everywhere in the city was the groaning of big timber axles, and the squeak and scream of awkward, hastily made wheels, and the cries of mules and oxen as they were whipped bloody and forced to drag the great weights on. "They are bringing up siege engines," Cedric murmured, speaking everyone's thought. "Many hundreds of them, and heavy ones, from the sound of it. Cannon perhaps, or great trebuchets. They do not mean to besiege us long."

Runners continued to return to the castle with each new piece of news, and every runner was dirty with having fallen in the crowded streets, for they could see almost nothing in the darkness, and every so often one would arrive much later than the others, having gotten lost outright. They were boys, almost all of them, and from the lower parts of the city, bright lads who had been given a chance through some beneficence here or there, and in the candlelight of the King's chamber they showed their raggedness more than usual. The dark places where they had fallen and scraped themselves were black with blood. Yet each composed himself and spoke the brief message from the different captains of the wall, and the message was always the same—that the horsemen, the infantry, the supply tumuluses, and finally the siege engines had passed that way, heard but not seen.

Last of the runners was a young man taller than the rest, and ill-fed looking, with his bony ankles and wrists sticking from his livery. He had buck teeth, and his ears protruded. He drew himself up and gave a sharp salute, and then spoke the news. "Majesty, the watchers on the East Battue of the castle beg to report that the two siege trains were heard to join up below their walls."

Cedric nodded gravely, and again spoke what everyone was thinking. "Then they are in place all around us. I do not think they will be long in coming." He clapped the messenger on the shoulder. "Back to your watchers, then, with our compliments, and tell them to carry on, and that the King's eyes are on every man tonight."

The youth bowed and raced from the chamber.

"Well," King Boniface said, putting the last of the tiny wooden counters that marked the positions of Waldo's forces into place on the great map of the city, "the King's eyes would be on them if the King could see two feet outside this chamber. Are there horses for us saddled outside, Duke Wassant?"

"There are, Majesty," the Duke said. "Without delay, we can be wherever the battle is joined."

"We will go down to the horses, then," the King said, "and Cedric, you will come with us that far. There is nothing to be learned now from the map, except that we are surrounded and outnumbered and that the enemy would be a fool not to attack now, while his strength is greatest and we still know nothing of him. And I think many ill things of Waldo, but not that he is a fool."

Amatus and Calliope stood to follow the King, but he turned to them and said, "One task remains before we join the battle. If we can just raise the blackness, even for one instant, the heart might go back into our army, and then who knows what they might not do, with their backs to each other and everything at stake? Amatus, you have some gifts, and you are yourself in part magical; as for what magics your Companions carry, none of us know. Will you, and Psyche, and the Twisted Man, be so good as to join the witches in the courtyard and see what might happen? Sir John, I give you to help guard them, and Calliope, since I know I cannot forbid that you go along, I permit you to follow."

This was not entirely to Amatus's liking, for he knew that the assault might come from several quarters, and he had passed the point of false modesty, so that he knew that his presence might be needed to rally forces where the King could not be. But it was an order, and this was war. With a light clutch of forearms, he took leave of his father and headed for the courtyard, Psyche, the Twisted Man, Sir John, and Calliope following.

As the door closed behind him. King Boniface said softly to Cedric, "I wish this parting had not had a falsehood in it," and Cedric bowed his head, feeling a bit of shame at what he had brought his King to, though he saw no other choice. Perhaps because of the shame, he did not record the incident himself, but the indispensable Roderick, patiently standing by as guard, witnessed it, and put it without change into
King Boniface,
where many have said it is his finest scene.

Then a runner burst in, gasping, and said, "Majesty, the gate of the Bridge of a Thousand Faces—the watch at the gate—reports that many hundreds . . . many hundreds—" and fell dead, a red stain spreading on the back of his triolet.

In an instant the Duke, the King, and Cedric, were down the stairs, and in one more they were mounted, and, surrounded by Roderick and his men as escorts, clattering through the city toward the gate, fearing it was already fallen, but going in all the greater haste because of it.

Amatus and those with him just reached the witches at the moment that the other party set out for the Bridge of a Thousand Faces. Without a word Amatus stepped into their circle, concentrating on offering up whatever strength might be concealed in him to lifting the dark. His insides tingled, his eyes felt sore and old, and there was a half-sob born in his chest, but nothing happened. Beside him, he felt Calliope and Psyche join, and a moment later the Twisted Man and Sir John. He could feel the new strength surging into the circle, but nothing changed. For a long time they stood, giving all their strength to the witches, growing tired and old but making no gain. Though they did not move, they ached with effort. Then the Twisted Man seemed to glow with a blue fire like lightning, and something surged through them all with a wild, fierce cry in it, an icy fury that looked and saw and judged without pity or compassion, that ripped through the dark to look on Waldo as he was—

There was a deep groan in unison, and a flash of lightning crackled through the dark lid of cloud above the city, tearing a widening rent in the black clouds. Starlight suddenly shone down, and in a moment the bold, silver light of the moon was reaching across the city.

All around them lay every witch, on her back, stone dead. Their eyes were wide open. What they had seen had killed them.

Amatus turned to the Twisted Man and asked, "What have you done?"

"What we were ordered, Prince. No more than that. To lift the dark, one must see; and no good witch could see such things and live. If it will make you easier, you may believe that if they were truly good witches they would have chosen to die in the service of their King in any case. And if they only pretended to be good, we are well rid of them."

The Twisted Man's tone was flat and bland, as it often was, and yet Amatus felt deep in his bones that there was a streak of cruel pleasure there. It disgusted him, he realized, and as he looked around at the poor broken bodies of the witches he said, "It will be long before there is this much magic in the Kingdom again."

"Would you rather have hoarded it so that Waldo might have use of all of it?" The Twisted Man's voice was bleak and bitter. "The shouting, Highness, announces that battle is joined at the Bridge of a Thousand Faces. Let us go there to fight, and if the world, as it is, is too much for you to bear, then you can depart it there, I am sure."

Sir John and Calliope winced, for this was no way to speak to a prince, but Amatus merely nodded, and turned to close the eyes of the dead witch nearest him. In a moment all of them, except the Twisted Man, were also closing witches' eyes, and composing the sprawled corpses.

Sir John looked at the livid blotchy skin, greasy gray hair, yellow teeth, and stare of horror on the witch's face before him, and saw too that her hands were still bent in the warding sign that had prevented Waldo's evil from entering the circle. He placed his fingers on the dry, rough skin of the eyelids, and pressed them down. "Let me make so good a show when my time comes," he whispered to the hideous corpse.

A cold damp wind was blowing now, and as they stood the wind whipped the cloak of the Twisted Man close to his body, and everyone except Psyche shuddered. She took the Twisted Man's arm, and said, "If I may, I shall ride behind you."

But to ride through the city was no quicker than to walk. At the sounds of the attack, citizens had poured into the streets, some snatching up arms to fight, some possessions to flee, some merely to try to see. Then the clouds had torn, and there had been glad cries that the King's forces must be winning, and that the King himself had ridden by, and they had begun to surge toward the gate, but now that the moon was fully out, black smoke and flames could be seen from the direction of the gate, and those near it had turned away again, only to tangle with those still pressing toward it. No one knew anything, but they all shouted what they did not know to each other at the tops of their lungs.

The little party was often unable to move because of the number of citizens in an alley or street. Some of them cried "Hurrah!" and saluted Amatus, and others turned to spread rumors that the King must be dead already and the Prince riding to take his place, and a few jeered at his half-body because they thought that anything unusual must have had something to do with bringing the catastrophe on them. Children, forgotten by their parents, or perhaps having run out into the street and lost their way, wailed everywhere, and the air was full of anxious cries as people tried to find each other.

"We cannot get through in time to be any use to anyone," Sir John said. Amatus nodded, but they kept trying to find a way through.

When the King, Duke Wassant, Cedric, and their guard had ridden through, not long before, the streets had not yet filled with citizens, and they had gone through swiftly, so that they reached the gate while the fighting still raged there.

There was no grace or finesse to Waldo's attack. The first wave had died in a hail of omnibus balls without ever setting foot on the bridge; the second wave had perished on the bridge; the third had been cut down with steel and pismire.

But none of this mattered, for there was a fourth wave, and a fifth, and approximately the seventh wave was now coming over the wall. Men who stood and fought as bravely as ever still saw that there was no end of the enemy, but they themselves were dwindling, and much as they might force their hearts to go on, and their arms to keep striving, still they saw what must happen, and their blood turned to lead in their veins, and the icicles of fear swelled and bored into their hearts, and they fell despairing, struggling on but no longer believing it was for anything. The torch flames showed only the dark shadows under the helmets of Waldo's men, not enough to say even whether they were living or undead, but they caught the faces of the loyal soldiers of the Kingdom fully, and no hope shone forth there, but only the determination to die well, however little it might mean.

This came to Cedric in a glance, and he had but begun to draw a breath to give some word of advice to his King, but Boniface had already seen enough and took action. He drew his long sword—a ceremonial relic—raised it above his head, reared his great gray war horse, and cried to the mob in the streets and the disorganized soldiers around him, "Once more into the breach—"

Roderick felt the power that was in it, and drew the top pismire from his swash and spurred forward, following his King against the foe, his troop following his motion as one man. A part of his mind tried to remember the speech the King was making, for future use, and as he realized he was thinking of the future, he knew that hope had been born again in him, and this made him stand and lean forward in the stirrups and ride full tilt for a little group of Waldo's minions who were just now breaking from the press. The pismire roared in his fist, and the leader of the invaders went down; around Roderick other pismires barked and rang.

Cedric had rallied the men on foot, and now they began to press the foe back; more of the enemy poured over the wall and through the breaches, but it did not matter, for they were swiftly pressed back and slaughtered against the walls. No quarter was given or asked on either side, and the stones under their feet grew slippery with thick blood, black in the torchlight.

Then a great streak of lightning ripped through the dark, and the clouds peeled back like a torn blanket in a high wind. A mighty shout went up from the King and his men, and Roderick, guessing what had happened, shouted, "Amatus! The Prince has broken their darkness!"

"Amatus!" the men roared, and in moments they had carried the fight back to the wall, and the bodies of Waldo's henchmen were hurled before them, dead or dying. An unnamed vassal raced forward and planted the Hand and Book again on the gate tower, and soldiers swarmed around to defend it.

Duke Wassant, his escree slick with blood, had just the pleasant moment to think that they might yet succeed, when King Boniface staggered and fell.

Cedric was at his side in an instant, lifting Boniface up, and Duke Wassant and Roderick were there a moment later, but there was nothing to be done. A great, ragged hole had been torn in the King's chest, and his white beard was soaked with the blood that spurted from his mouth. He opened his eyes for just a moment, and they thought he might say something—a final charge for them to carry out, words of pride, even just a cry against the injustice of it all—but he did not speak again before, with a long, rasping, bubbling sigh, he died there among his men, the pale moonlight revealing the moment when his face went slack and his chest ceased to move.

The same despair that had fallen on the men before now seized them in earnest, and though they fought on and even advanced, something went out of them. Roderick stood then, not sure of what had taken hold of him, and cried out in bitter rage; the fury seemed to leap from him to catch the hearts of the men, and as the Duke shouted to get them formed up and fighting in good order, they began to lay into the foe with a fury beyond hope or despair, seeking only to slay until nothing remained.

Tears streaming down his face, Wassant gestured for Cedric and two of the soldiers to carry the King's body back toward the castle, then turned again to pull the infantry into formation and pour a red rage of volleys across the bridge and into Waldo's packed troops. He bellowed again and again, order after order, and men worked the culverts and fired the omnibuses until their hands stung and burned and their shoulders drooped, and continued to load and fire long after they felt like falling to the ground, their aim unspoiled by the tears that wrote white tracks through the black sulphurous ash on their faces.

Waldo's first assault fell back, and citizen volunteers could be spared to fight the flames in the houses near the gate. The clouds above split farther to reveal the cold indifferent stars. To see them at all was victory of a kind.

The Duke strode among the men now, touching one on a shoulder, calling encouragement to another, rallying them to keep firing. He hoped desperately that reinforcements might arrive soon, for if he could strike across the bridge now, before Waldo's forces were well prepared, he might even break through and stand some prospect of raising the siege. A thousand factors and matters for his attention whirled through his brain, but still he moved among the men, encouraging and guiding. For a generation afterward, every man who had been at the Bridge of a Thousand Faces on that dark night could remember something the Duke had said to him, or what he had helped the Duke to do, or just the sight of Wassant's heavy, soft body rushing from one place to another. Perhaps more remarkable, almost all of the memories were true.

Out in the darkness great shapes reared up; some later said they looked like whales coming up out of the earth, some that they heaved up like demon's heads peering over a wall. Duke Wassant saw clearly enough what they were, and he spoke a word, flat and foul, to which his name would always be linked in stories afterwards.

Beside him, Roderick spat. "Those are not aimed at us who fight," he said bitterly.

"Waldo had no business being here in the first place," Duke Wassant said softly, as if it were merely a pleasant debating point over a quiet game of dice in the Gray Weasel. "When he wars on us so unjustly, should we be surprised that he is a wanton brute?"

Roderick nodded, but the main thought that crossed his mind was the hope that Gwyn was watching from the window of their house near the castle, for he knew if she saw what was about to happen she would use the common sense he had married her for and get down into the cellar. He wondered whether he would live through this to look for her.

The first of the great engines belched fire and smoke; there was some enchantment upon it, for what came out of its mouth was not the bright streak of light they had expected, a ball or shell intended to set fire to the city. Rather, a great, glowing ball of something that writhed like worms swelled slowly up into the sky and drifted, slow as a summer cloud, over the city. It floated over the heads of the Duke's men at the gate, and on for some half of a furuncle before with a soft sigh, it resolved itself, and rained down as a mass of corpses, their arms and legs seen in the fire of its dissolution.

The Duke opened his mouth to order the citizen brigades, with their weapons against the undead, to advance to destroy the fresh invasion, but before he could speak he saw that the rotting, decayed figures were standing up, covered with flames, and what they touched burned. In an instant a dozen houses were on fire, and though the undead fell swiftly enough to garlic and to rosewood darts, the fire they had set was more than men and women could fight.

Above them, countless more balls of swirling corpses drifted lazily onto the city, and the Duke saw in the moonlight that the engines that surrounded the city—there must have been a hundred in all—were all belching flame and smoke. "We cannot stop this," he said to Roderick. "The city will burn. We will have to fall back in the best order we can."

Even as he spoke, fires were bursting all over the slopes of the city above them.

When the balls of blazing corpses began to rise above the city, Amatus, his two Companions, and his two friends were hopelessly trapped in a mob that was unsure whether it wanted to flee madly in all directions, rush down to the bridge to join the fight, or loot the shops around it. Amatus had brandished his escree and compelled a certain limited public order nearby, but twenty feet away might as well have been in Hektaria for all the good his authority did. The smell of panic was thick in the air around them, and there was no clear thing they ought to do.

A ball of corpses fell nearby, and though the militia pounced on it—to have a clear task to do was such a relief from anxiety that everywhere the citizens were charging eagerly into battle against the undead invaders—it did not matter, for before they were put back to rest the corpses had set many fires, and it was not possible to put all of them out.

The struggle against the fire did, however, finally pull enough people from around Amatus and his friends to allow them to make a little progress, once they were sure fire fighting was going forward. They advanced almost a dozen houses before they were again penned in by a crowd.