Shadowmasque (34 page)

“I am honoured by your decision to take me into your confidence,” he said. “Although I am not Byrnak, the echoes of his life still reverberate in my mind. Tonight, however, they have grown quieter.”

“The honour is ours, long-lived Calabos,” said Qothan. “We are still the ones who serve, but we now pay our fealty higher than the black ambitions of a broken god.” He tilted his head. “We are done here, sers. Let us go forth.”

Outside, a persistent rain was falling and the leaves of bushes and trees gleamed in the light of the footpath lamps. Archers and spearmen were hurrying past in twos and threes, heading for the barricade which had grown in the interim and was now defended by a hundred or more.

As the four emerged from the alehouse, Calabos saw Dardan and Sounek deep in conversation which ceased abruptly when they saw him. For a moment Calabos thought he saw a look of uncertainty in Dardan’s face then Coireg approached, his bare head soaked, hair matted to his skull..

“We cannot wait much longer,” he said. “Tangaroth’s people say that there are at least three groups of invaders heading this way.”

Sounek and Dardan had joined them and Calabos glanced their way for confirmation. Sounek nodded.

“An accurate summary,” he said. “Focus through your undersenses and you can feel the talismans their leaders carry — they’re like three burning jewels in the night. And you should also know that we’ve had word from Tashil — she and the others are safely ashore, at the Silver Landings of all places.”

“I heard nothing from her,” Calabos said, turning to Qothan with a frown.

“We habitually veil our thoughts from any possible spies,” said the tall Daemonkind. “Your closeness to us may have prevented such farspeech reaching you. But we must delay no longer — various powers are moving into concurrence.”

Calabos nodded and looked at his companions. “Three parties it shall be then, and with the help of Tashil and the others we may stand a better chance of taking the invaders’ leader alive. Listen…”

* * *

Down in the sloping, rain-lashed street, a horde of the undead were charging uphill towards a shaky barricade where barely a score of city guardsmen waited. Axe and sword blades shone wetly in the fitful light of guttering torches while a limping serjeant tried to snarl some courage into his men — go for the wrists before the ankles, he was saying, and the ankles before the head. Use your bucklers offensively, guard your companion’s back, and hearken to my orders…

Then the first wave struck. A section of the barricade gave way and the decayed attackers surged towards the breach to meet the guardsmen’s axes…

From a third-floor window back along the street, Tashil watched the ensuing battle while keeping a weather eye on the main body of invaders, both alive and dead, who were massing about twenty yards from the fight at the barrier. Yet while this transpired, her thoughts were full of farspeech as she and Inryk settled on a plan with Calabos.

(
…follow them up to the Onwyc Parade
) Calabos was saying, (
And when they start across it, you launch your first attack — Firedagger should suffice to begin with — and once you’ve got their attention, we’ll strike from their rear
)

Master, the buildings on the north side of the parade are only covered stalls and two-storey workshops,
Tashil said.
There’s nowhere for us to take a stand.

(
While our main group is striking their rear, a second group led by Dardan will be heading for your position, enough to keep you from being overwhelmed
) Calabos said (
By then, hopefully, the revenants will have ceased to be a problem
)

If that’s the plan, then let us proceed,
Inryk said.
The enemy shows no sign of flagging.

Which was true enough — down in the street, a mere handful of surviving guards were fleeing uphill through the pouring rain towards another torchlit barricade. Beyond that, Tashil knew, was tree-lined Onwyc Parade which ran west and curved south past the main gates of Hojamar Keep where it met the square there. Where this Jumil and another powerful sorcerer were ensconced, according to Calabos.

If its absolutely necessary to capture the invaders’ leader
, she said,
then this seems as good a plan as any.

(
It is necessary, I assure you
)

Then let us press onward, she said. Just tell Dardan not to be late!

She caught a flash of the old man’s humour, then the presence of his thoughts faded, leaving her in the cold, dim room with the others. By the light of a solitary hooded lamp she could see that her brother, Atemor, was studiously sharpening his sword while Rog and Gillat were chewing on dried beef and hard biscuit which they had looted from an abandoned guardpost near the docks. Inryk stood by the other window, smiling sadly, and she wished briefly that Dybel was with them. But he had been utterly exhausted by the fight out on the bay and was in no fit state to continue: when they moored at the Silver Landings, hard on the heels of the undead ships, the steward Enklar had volunteered to stay aboard the Merry Meddler and mind Dybel, to which the rest agreed.

Atemor looked up and met her gaze. “Are we to join the battle, ‘Sheel?”

“After a fashion,” she said and outlined Calabos’ plan. Rog and Gillat shrugged and nodded, while Atemor frowned.

“A perilous tactic,” he said. “If your friend and his fighters are too late, we die.”

“When we find the right place from which to launch our attack,” Inryk said, “we could survey the vicinity for possible escape routes…” He glanced out the window, “and the sooner we leave the longer we’ll have.”

Down in the street, the mob of invaders had swollen in number, now looking to be several hundred strong as they strode uphill. As one, the five companions rose and made for the stairs with Tashil in the lead, employing her mage sight while the lamp was with Gillat who brought up the rear. Outside, they dashed across the cobbled road and clambered over a log wall which blocked a narrow alleyway. While the main streets in this part of Sejeend ran straight, the back streets were a maze of alleyways, passages, private yards, and gardens, and improvised walls. This would have been risky territory for any invading force, crammed with ideal ambush points and avenues of escape both above and below ground.

It was a higher path that they were taking, a route that lay along courtyard walls, the flat roofs of sheds and middens, balconies and gantries, much of it slippery from the rain. The townsfolk were much more in evidence here than out on the main streets, and the five attracted catcalls and curses as they hurried past open windows and doors. The buildings here were almost uniformly decrepit and crumbling, their brick walls blackened with age, marred by moss and sprouting grass or even small bushes eaves and the crannies around chimney pots. Once, as they traversed an angled roof, a gang of gutter urchins starting throwing stones at them from a nearby low wall until Inryk sent a spray of ice needles their way, forcing them to duck out of sight.

An intermittent fence of rotten planking marked the boundary between the back streets and the properties that faced onto Onwyc Parade. As they dropped from a rickety balcony down into a muddy lane, Tashil risked a brief sending in farspeech.

Calabos
, she thought.
We’re almost in position.

For a moment there was no reply, then;

(
We’ve got problems…more of the enemy here than we thought so we’re taking another way towards Onwyc — let me know when the main group reaches the parade…
)

She began to agree but he was gone. All was utterly dark in the lane and for a second she thought that the others had abandoned her, until she caught Inryk’s presence nearby. He was just round the corner of a two-storey building, probably one of the workshops.

“Atemor and the guards have gone inside to scout,” he said as she joined him. He was standing beneath the dripping lintel of a double-doored entrance. “This place is much like the others along this part of the parade. Once the invaders break through the barricade at the top of Beehive Street they’ll have to come past here, whether they’re heading for Kala dale or the Keep…”

He paused as Rog appeared in the darkened doorway to mutter an all-clear, then lead them along a short passage and up stone steps to a lightless second floor. Gillat was standing over by another set of steps with the hooded lamp, its muffled glow showing up rows of wooden shelves crammed with what looked like pottery. These stairs led up to the roof, emerging beneath a sloping, unsteady wattle-and-canvas canopy which sheltered some small barrels and an open crate half-full of shattered crockery. A knee-high mortared wall enclosed the roof and Atemor was squatting near one of the front-facing corners, staring out at the wide road. Tashil went over to crouch by him, ignoring the rain which was now gusting heavily along Onwyc Parade, rushing through the trees.

“Sometimes these cities feel more dangerous than the swamps of Gulmaegorn,” Atemor murmured.

Tashil smiled wryly, knowing the truth in his words. She was about to mention some of the perils of life in their father’s house when a couple of figures dashed into view along the road, close to where Beehive Street began. Sure enough, moments later ragged-looking men came stalking forth in ones and twos at first, then a dense mass of them. Pouring into Onwyc Parade, then wheeled round to march in the direction of Hojamar Keep.

Swiftly, Tashil went within to focus her farspeech, seeking Calabos —
They’ve reached the parade! They’re here…

Again, a long empty moment.

(
We can’t…we’re hemmed in on an upper floor but our serjeant thinks there’s a way out….Tashil, you must delay them…Dardan will be with you soon….have to…
)

As his thought-aura faded, Tashil came back to the cold wet night to see Inryk crouching beside her, a half-smile on his lips.

“He’s been held up, but we still have to attack, yes?”

“That’s right,” she said.

“It’s going to be a like twisting a moortiger’s tail,” he said. “So — firedaggers in the middle of a downpour….hm, might work…”

A glittering, roseate radiance bloomed around his hands and he smiled. Tashil laughed softly and looked back out at the enemy host as it approached. The sight was unnerving — only a few carried torches, living pirates probably, and they were grouped near the leading rows, clustered around someone who had to be their mysterious leader. The rest comprised a great shuffling mass numbering in the hundreds, their forms barely discernible as they trudged on in rain-drenched darkness, their deathly presence pervading the surroundings. She could sense the dim flickering awareness of those subjugated spirits, dragged back from the Vale of Unburdening and the other realms of death to act the part in another’s extravagant melodrama. Ending these pitiful existences could only be the grimmest of chores, but a necessary one.

As the host began to draw level with their position, Tashil resorted to farspeech once more.

Calabos…Dardan? — we shall soon be in need of your skills…

(
We’re not far away
) came Dardan’s irascible response (
Just run into a little trouble…carry on…
)

And he was gone. Inryk chuckled.

“Time to light up the night, methinks.”

She glanced at the dark host of the undead, whose crowded centre was passing by and suppressed the fear that gnawed at her resolve. She made a ‘hold’ gesture, waited for the trailing edge to straggle by, then nodded. Together, the mages stood, their hands ablaze, and hurled a volley of firedaggers into the central mass of the undead invaders. Hissing like knots of burning snakes, the blazing bolts struck and spread over several forms. Gouts of steam erupted and a few angry cries went up from the living. The dead, though, merely halted and turned to look up at Tashil and the others on the workshop roof, all clearly following the overarching regard of their master. For a frozen moment, Tashil almost felt the eery pressure of hundreds of dead gazes focused unwinkingly on those who had dared to assail them. Then the entire mass of sodden figures moved as one towards the workshop.

Almost immediately, Tashil heard a shout and sounds of fighting from over by the steps — Rog and Gillat were hacking and kicking at figures trying to climb up to the roof while Atemor was rolling two barrels over from the other end of the shelter.

“They’re not part of the crowd at the front,” Tashil yelled. “Where have they come from?”

As Atemor steered the barrels one after another into the open stair hatch, Tashil gritted her teeth and turned back to the street before the workshop. As the undead crowded in close to the walls, she and Inryk sent repeated barrages of firedaggers down into the press but with little obvious effect.

Dardan!
she thought in farspeech.
Now would be a very good time….

(
Wait…just hold for a bit longer…
)

I wish we could,
she thought as a sopping wet figure hauled itself up over the wall to her left and lunged at her. In savage reflex she called on the thought-canto Barb and as those shrivelled hands grabbed at her she delivered a back-handed blow with a fist wreathed in lightning. For a second she saw the unleashed power flare through the revenant’s mock flesh, turning it patchily translucent and showing up age-browned and bitten bones — then it opened its mouth as if to scream but instead burst apart in a cascade of rotten, dessicated bones and soaked rags.

But there were now others following his example, clawing up the outside of the workshop, clambering up over each other to reach the roof.

Are we going to die here?
she thought to herself.
Is this how I touch my fate?

Atemor was still fighting furiously to clear the side wall and the canopy while Rog and Gillat wrestled a long object from behind the barrels, a heavy ladder which they then hauled over to the wall — and flung out to span the gap between their workshop and the next.

Tashil felt a surge of something like optimism and tapped Inryk on the shoulder.