The Fortress of Glass (43 page)

While her companions ate grapes and talked with the ease of long acquaintance, Ilna's fingers worked. She could feel eyes on her, though she knew from experience that if she snapped her head around she'd see only a blur before the watchers vanished. One of the little folk was staring at her from the holly to her left at this very moment.

Ilna turned slightly to the right. "Chalcus?" she said in a calm, pleasant tone. "Merota; I want you both to close your eyes now."

"Why-" Merota said. The child must've seen the cold anger on Chalcus' face-not at her, but at what she'd done-because she instantly screwed her eyes shut.

Ilna used both hands to spread her knotted pattern toward the holly. There was a tiny squeal and a thrashing within the hard leaves.

"All right," she said to her companions, hiding the fabric in her sleeve without taking the time to unpick it. She stepped quickly to the hedge. "You can look now."

She paused for a moment, then reached through the tangled branches with her left hand and pulled out the little man whom her pattern had paralyzed. He was as wiry as a squirrel; even Chalcus, the most tightly muscular man Ilna had ever seen, carried more fat under his skin.

The little man-Ilna refused to call them the Prey, though she didn't doubt that was their place in the garden's society-was as wide-eyed as a hooked bass; he'd been caught with his mouth half open. Ilna laid him on the ground and quickly trussed his arms behind his back with her noose.

She gave the free end of the silken rope to Chalcus. "I'm going to wake him up now," she explained. She brought the fabric out of her sleeve and undid several knots in a precise sequence. "He may try to run."

"There's never been such a wizard as you, dear heart," the sailor said; half jesting, but only half.

"It's no more wizardry than what I've seen you do with your sword," Ilna said sharply. She didn't like talking about her skills, in part because talk reminded her that she'd gained them in Hell. It would've been closer to the truth to call her a demon than a wizard....

She spread the revised pattern before the little man's staring eyes. He gave a convulsive leap before he even blinked. In mid air, halfway to the holly, the rope snapped tight and jerked him down to the grass with a thump.

"Sister take him!" Chalcus shouted, quickly wrapping the silk around his left hand. He'd been holding it with his fingers alone. If he'd been even slightly less quick or less strong, the little man would've jerked free and escaped into the hedge with the rope.

The little man jumped again, this time in the opposite direction. Chalcus threw his right arm in front of his face, expecting the captive to go for his eyes or throat. His sword winked in the unchanging sunlight, point upward where it wouldn't spit the little fellow by accident. Instead he sailed over Chalcus' shoulder, trying to escape to the Osage orange.

Again the noose snubbed him up. When he hit the ground this time he curled into a ball and lay there. His breath hissed, and small bubbles of foam formed between his lips.

"I had him, dear one," Chalcus said with a hint of reproach. "You needn't have done that."

"I did nothing!" Ilna snapped, unreasonably angry at the situation. "Did he hit himself too hard on the ground?"

Merota knelt by the little man and stroked his cheek. "He's afraid, Ilna," she said. "He's shivering here! Feel him."

The little man's eyes were open but there was no more mind within them than in a pair of oysters. "We aren't going to hurt you," Ilna said, more harshly than she'd intended. "We just want to ask you some questions."

The little man didn't speak or even move, unless you counted his violent trembling as movement. Voices chittered in the hedges on both sides.

"Please," Merota said. "He's really frightened. Can't we let him go, please?"

"Yes, of course," said Ilna, bending over the little form. Standing he wouldn't come up to more than her waist. She was furious-at the little man, at herself, and at life.

Mostly at herself, of course; as usual. She'd used her skills to throw a harmless creature into numb terror for no benefit to herself. That was the kind of monster that she was.

When Ilna'd loosed the bonds she straightened and looped the rope back around her waist. The little man stayed where he was, still trembling.

"You can go now, sir," Merota said in a tone of stilted formality. He trembled.

Ilna's cheeks were stiff with disgust and rage. The part of her that'd grown up with normal people wanted to damn the little man to the Underworld for making her feel this way—

And the other part of her was sick, knowing that by trapping him that way she had sent him to a Hell which'd consumed him as completely as the place a misstep had taken Ilna os-Kenset. She hadn't meant to do that to him any more than she'd meant to do it to herself; but she had, and the consequences were her responsibility.

Ilna picked up the little man in both hands and carried him back to the hedge from which she'd taken him. This time the holly jabbed her because she wasn't trying to avoid the sharp leaves. She needed to be punished.

"There," she said, turning to her companions. "Let's get on from here, shall we?"

She'd left her former captive in a crotch among the scaly branches, his head higher than his feet. He'd come around in his own time or he wouldn't; she'd done what he could.

There was a scrabbling in the hedge; Ilna looked back. The holly twitched and the little man was gone.

If I could believe in the Great Gods, I would thank them now.

"Aye, there's nothing here to hold us," Chalcus said easily. "Is there a direction in particular-"

"They let Dee go," peeped a tiny voice. Then, in a chorus like frogs in springtime, "They let Dee go!"

Little faces were staring from the hedges on both sides. There were more than Ilna could count on both hands.

Chalcus lowered the point of his sword to the ground. Merota put her right hand in Ilna's left and edged closer.

"Princes?" said the little woman peering from the place in the holly where Ilna had snatched her captive. "I am Auta. Have you come to save us?"

* * *

"Get the firewood up here!" Donria shouted. "We're going to burn down the gates!"

"I don't think we'll need that, lad," said the ghost in Garric's mind. "The gate leaves don't close so tightly. You can get your axe through and lift the bar if they were in too big a hurry to pin it."

And what's the chance of that? Garric thought, but that was just a gasp of exhausted despair. Nothing seemed very practical at the moment, but that wasn't going to keep him from trying. He knew-he remembered-that Carus had won a good number of his battles by pressing in just this fashion, for the opportunity that the enemy shouldn't have given him-but had regardless, because people make mistakes and frightened people make even more mistakes.

"Come on," he muttered to Metz. Duzi! but his right shoulder hurt, hurt like fire! There was nothing better for the wound than using it, though, and there wasn't any choice besides.

Garric stepped into the bog. He sank to his knees as expected but slogged on. It wasn't but ten feet-two double paces-to the gate, though he'd often run a mile with less effort than this took him.

"What are we doing?" Metz asked, wheezing between the words. He was at Garric's side, moving a little more easily than Garric did since he was more used to this accursed swamp.

'We're going to open the gate," Garric said. Then he added, "The ground's solid inside but we've got to get there."

Metz' uncles had followed also. One'd been badly bloodied on the right side of the head and his ear was in tatters, apparently from a Corl's teeth. He saw the surprise in Garric's expression and grinned broadly. "That was before I broke his back!" he said proudly.

They were supposed to be watching the rear, Garric remembered.

"Don't worry about what's behind you," Carus said with a grin full of murderous delight. "If Torag knew how to fight a battle, you wouldn't have gotten this far."

The ghost laughed and added, "Says the man who lost his life and his fleet because he underestimated his enemy. But not this time, lad. Not this time."

Garric reached the gate. Each leaf was a mat of wickerwork, folded vertically to double it. The interwoven fibers would've been harder to cut through than boards of the same thickness even if he'd had a steel axe, but Carus had correctly seen that the crossbar was the weak point.

Garric reversed his axe, stuck the butt end into the crack between the gate leaves, and shoved upward with all his strength. Duzi it hurts!

The bar didn't move. A warrior thrust his spear through the gap; Garric ducked away, warned by the shadow moving inside. Metz grabbed the shaft just below the delicate flint head and jerked the weapon out, though his uncle Abay's return thrust was vain also.

A troupe of eight women including Donria were half carrying, half pushing a raft of brushwood. It was already burning. Somebody-

"Donria or I'm a priest!" said Carus. "By the Lady, what I could've done with her beside me!"

-had realized that it it'd be much easier to get the fire going on the relatively firm matting than in the mire at the base of the wall. The women shoved the mass hard against the stockade at the right edge of the gate and staggered away. Already the hard, oily stems were crackling and stretching their flames higher.

Metz put a hand on Garric's left arm. "Not so close," he said, tugging gently. "When a house burns in the village it'll sometimes light the next one just by heat, without even sparks touching. This wall if it gets going...."

"Right, back to the mat," Garric mumbled. He was suddenly so tired he could barely get the words out. If the Coerli sallied now....

"If they sally now, we'll deal with them," said Carus, smiling like a torturer. "But they won't, lad. Their world's turned upside down, and they're not the folk to roll back onto the top of it."

Light glittered in the clouds overhead. Lightning, Garric thought, but the flash was a vivid red: wizardlight. The gray mass of sky, paler this morning than generally in Garric's experience of this sodden land, began to swirl widdershins. As it turned, it thickened like butter forming in cream.

A raindrop smacked Garric; it was the size of his thumbnail. More drops slammed down, sending up high spouts from the bog. The fire which'd been roaring toward full life began to splutter gouts of black ash.

Garric paused, looking from the struggling fire toward the sky. Sirawhil, of course. Torag and his warriors had lost their heads in the disaster, but she had not. If she could keep the humans from winning by daylight, darkness and the pause to regroup would give the battle to the Coerli.

Give the humans over to slaughter by the Coerli.

"... semimenaeus damasilam laikam...."

Sirawhil chanting-but it couldn't be, it was from behind.

Garric turned swiftly. Marzan sat on firm ground a short distance from the mat which bridged the bog. He wore his headdress of black feathers and held a separate feather, longer than the others, as a wand. He chanted over the topaz, "Iesen nalle nallelam...."

A wind was rising; cat's-paws fluttered puddles and chilled the sweat on Garric's shoulders. Somewhere in the mid sky a much greater force awoke with a low howl.

"Malthabeth eomal allasan...," chanted Marzan. The young girl who'd been helping him walk now stood behind him with a fire-hardened stake. She glared fiercely, turning her head to watch everything around them. It seemed to Garric that she was more concerned that another villager would bump the wizard than that the Coerli would attack.

Marzan's face showed the strain of his art, but Garric recognized also a hint of smug triumph in the wizard's expression. Carus and he hadn't considered Sirawhil's powers when they planned the attack, but neither had they remembered that Marzan was on their side.

And Marzan had the topaz. Within the jewel was an azure spark around which whirled the cloudy flaws.

The rain built to a thunderous downpour; to Garric it seemed more like standing at the base of a waterfall than being caught in an ordinary storm. The blaze that'd started to devour the stockade slumped back into steam and angry spittings.

A fist of wind shrieked out of the sky and whirled a hollow dome above the fire. In it glittered azure wizardlight; the rain splashed and runnelled away as though from a rock. The fire quickly regained its enthusiasm, carving into the fabric of the wall. Rain quenched the curtains of sparks swirling up beyond the shield of wind, but within its heart the blaze swelled into an inferno.

Garric turned his face away, watching through the corners of his eyes. The heat was too fierce for his cheeks to bear.

The flames roared so loudly that Garric couldn't hear Marzan's chanting, but the wizard's feather continued to tap to the rhythm of his moving lips. The rain lashed him and his helper just as it did the other gathered humans, but Garric noticed that the drops falling toward the topaz disintegrated in blue flashes a finger's breadth above it.

The upper gate hinge, a flat wicker rope, burned through. The lower hinge held for a moment, but when the leaf tilted inward it tore also. The gate fell open with a gush of sparks. Several Coerli sprang away from the ruin with despairing wails. The rain noticeably slackened, then stopped.