The Wicked Day (50 page)

“Get off the wall!” screamed Jute.

Time slowed. At least, it did for Jute. A snowflake drifted past his eyes, dissolving into water as it fell. The duke of Harlech was turning toward him. Stone and shadow, but he had never realized how old the man was. The duke’s eyes met his, widened as knowledge gripped him. He whirled and snapped out an order, but Jute did not hear him. The ranks of soldiers on the wall stood like statues. Far beneath the wall, beneath the city, underneath them all, the earth groaned.

I did not choose this.

The voice whispered through Jute’s thoughts. A girl’s voice. It was the slightest of whispers, no more noise than a leaf would make drifting down onto the damp earth. It trembled in his mind, full of sorrow.

I did not.

But then the voice was gone. Instead, there was only an impression of heat and darkness that slammed against his mind, full of malice and hatred. The day, as dark and gloomy as it was, darkened even more. It was as if the clouds had thickened their weave into the impenetrability of stone. It was as if the whole world turned under a night sky with no moon or stars, even though surely the sun still shone.

Jute threw himself off the wall. He grabbed hold of the wind and then flung it out, whipping across the top of the wall. The blast swept up hundreds of soldiers. The wind knocked them off their feet and sent them flying off the wall. It blew them end over end like so many ragdolls. The wind did not drop them, however, but wafted them down until it deposited them, not so gently, on the street below the wall. Frantically, Jute hurled the wind again, even as he mounted higher into the sky. Dukes and officers went flying this time, Owain Gawinn among them, whirling away down to the courtyard of the Guard, unscathed except for bruises and the loss of their dignity. That was all Jute had time for.

The horse glared up at him as it galloped across the ground, neck outstretched and teeth gleaming with flames. Its mane streamed out in draperies of scarlet and smoke. It was surely a giant of a horse. A monster. Even bigger than the legendary Min the Morn, the impact of whose hooves had shaped the hills of the Mearh Dun. But this horse would not shape anything unless it was destruction.

The horse and rider hit the city wall. Flame and speed and darkness collided with stone, with stone laid twenty feet in width and a hundred feet in height. The wall had been built centuries before by the master masons of Siglan Cynehad, the first king of Tormay. They had built with love and skill. Each stone had been hewn to marry its neighbor without seam. The wall had withstood wars, sieges, catapults, and the relentless depredations of weather and time. But it could not withstand this.

The wall exploded. Flames shot up, red gouts of blinding heat, dirty with smoke and billowing dust. Chunks of rock sang viciously through the air. The ground shook as tons of stone collapsed. The wall toppled for a hundred yards in either direction. The arch over the gate collapsed, splintering the massive oak gates with a crash. The wood burst into flame with a roar. Hooves rang on stone and the horse and rider emerged from the smoke. The air shimmered around it, as if in the heat of a furnace. The rider was only a dim shape in the fierce blaze, a dark shadow of iron in the maelstrom.

A voice spoke from the fire. It echoed against the walls of the buildings still standing nearby. It was a deep and dreadful voice, a voice from nightmares and dark nights. Those who heard it found their minds full of terrible thoughts—of dead and decaying things, of hunger and desperation and the ravaging fire. The voice seemed as if it spoke within each man’s mind rather than his ears.

Thou hast made thy choice, city of men. It is before thee. Behold, I hold the keys to death and darkness.

Shadows stirred behind the horseman in the shifting half-light of the flames. Figures emerged from the darkness, marching up through the wreckage of stone. Firelight glinted on spears, on helms and armor. The horse’s eyes burned with fire. The rider sat motionless like stone. The voice continued, but the words were now in a strange and foreign tongue. The words echoed and trembled and shivered in the deepening darkness of the day. There was a dreadful beauty in the words, as if they were formed by a once-graceful tongue that could now speak only of death. The sound seemed as if it were woven of the shadows of starfire, though none of them understood that except for Jute and the hawk, and, perhaps, the old duke of Harlech. But deeper than the starfire was the darkness of Daghoron itself, and it was from there that those words came. The fire flickered amidst the broken stones of the wall. The soldiers behind the horseman waited in silence.

One thing might save thee. Give me the boy. Life and death stand before thee. Give me Jute and find thy salvation.

Owain Gawinn limped forward. His face was streaked with blood and dust. Sweat burned in his eyes. His whole body ached with fatigue. He tried to speak, but his throat was so dry that he found himself unable to utter a sound.

Not that it matters, he thought tiredly. We've already made our choice. We've been making the same choice for hundreds of years, haven't we? Ever since our forefathers fought and died in the forgotten lands of the east, fighting the darkness. Even before that. If the legends are true. Their children fled into the west and came to Tormay. And what will our children do? Can they flee even further into the west, beyond the sea, or will the darkness still follow them? Is death the only end?

The horse swung its head toward Owain. Its burning eyes stared as if the beast could read his mind. It advanced a step. Flame dripped down its legs and guttered among the rubble.

Choose wisely, little man.

Owain did the only thing he could do. He drew his sword.

With a sudden cheer, a rabble of Guardsmen charged forward behind him. They were not alone. The duchies charged with them: the men of Harlech, Thule, Hull, Dolan, and Vo. They came with spears and swords, with axes and maces, a line of iron and fury. A hail of arrows preceded them, snarling through the air, all aimed at the burning horseman, and all to no avail as each one exploded into fire and falling ash. The defenders of the city did not care. They charged forward over the rubble, through the falling snow in the dim light of the burning gate. They swept past Owain Gawinn and surged on toward their death. And death awaited them. A wave of black-armored soldiers marched through the gap in the ruined wall, shoulder to shoulder. The wave parted around the horseman and smashed against the advancing men of Tormay with a tremendous crash. Iron broke on iron. The line reeled back and forth, trampling the ground into blood and death. A wedge of the men of Harlech, angled behind the deadly sword of Rane, drove into the dark ranks and cut their way toward the horseman. The closer they came, however, the stiffer the opposition became until it seemed as if they cast themselves upon a stone wall that did nothing except run bright with their blood.

The horseman laughed at this. At least, those nearby thought he was the one who laughed. They could see no movement in the rider and, of course, his face was not visible behind its iron helm. But the laugh boomed out across the violent fray. It was a deep and dreadful noise, full of malice. The sound was like stones shattering, like death laughing beside the grave of a child, like cold, dead starlight. Everyone on the battlefield froze for an instant at the sound.

The horse stamped a hoof and the earth shook. The ground reeled and shuddered and quaked. Buildings collapsed. Walls cracked and fell in on themselves, bringing down roofs in shattering showers of splintered tile. Choking clouds of dust billowed out from the streets. The city walls still standing on either side of the ruined gap swayed this way and that until they collapsed outward in a thundering roar of stone.

But despite all this, despite the dead and dying and the broken bodies crushed under stone and fallen walls, the defenders surged forward undaunted. The black-armored foe met them in silence. Sword rang on sword, on helm and breastplate. Men died. They died well, fighting in ragged formation around their dukes, the Guardsmen fighting and dying to defend their city, to defend their captain, to defend their wives and families, their children. They died, cursing and spitting and calling out defiance even as more and more ranks of the enemy marched over the ruins of the walls to join the fray.

From one of the side streets, a motley assortment of fishermen and dockworkers suddenly appeared with much hollering of profanity. The court of the Guard was only blocks away from Fishgate, and it is doubtful in all the history of Hearne whether drunk fishermen have ever turned down an opportunity for a good fight. They came with boathooks, clubs, and long knives. For a heartening moment, the fishermen drove into the flank of the foe with a roar, bashing skulls and slashing throats with the same skill they brought to gutting a catch of fish. But then they broke like a wave and retreated back down their street. It was like watching the tide curling out to sea after pounding against the shore. At least, that was the thought that crossed Declan’s mind when he saw them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE FISH BUTCHER'S ADVICE

Declan had almost been caught in the collapse of the wall beside the Guard tower. The troop of horsemen had been dismounting around him, the horses blowing steam and stamping on the snowy cobblestones. He swung down from his horse. He was more tired than he’d ever been. His whole body ached. His hands trembled on the saddle. He wanted nothing more than to just close his eyes and forget everything for a while. A long while. If he could only forget them all. Jute, Severan, the ghost whispering and muttering to itself, Arodilac, Giverny standing bound on a tower, the dead bodies of his parents. The sea. Liss and the sea.

The pearl pulsed into sudden, frantic life against his chest. It wanted something. It wanted him somewhere. It needed him to be somewhere. The thought surged into his mind. He had to be somewhere. He had to be not here. Not here. Get away. Move. Fast. Declan stumbled away from the horse, his hand on his chest. Someone said something to him, but he didn’t hear. He was only aware of the pearl pulling at him. It pulled at him like he was caught in a riptide and had no choice but to surrender to the relentless current. He drifted across the courtyard to the street gate and the square that lay before the main city gates. The area was crowded with soldiers waiting patiently in groups divided according to duchy. Faces stared at him blankly, each man preoccupied with his own thoughts. He considered climbing the stairs to the top of the wall. He could see several of the dukes standing before the parapet. Was that Jute with them? Jute and the hawk. The pearl beat against him with a rhythm stronger than his own heart. He turned away.

It was at that moment that the wall exploded in a fury of sound and stone and flame. The explosion blew Declan backward off his feet. He skidded across the cobblestones and slammed against another body. There were shards of rock under his hands. He could taste blood in his mouth. His ears rang with the noise of it all. Shouts and screams of pain faded into silence. Dimly, he was aware of a dreadful voice that filled the quiet. Flames leapt in the darkness, behind the veil of falling snow. The voice rolled on. He could not hear it. He was only aware of the pearl. It subsided into serenity against his chest. Satisfied peace.

No
, a voice said in his mind. Her voice.
The eye of the storm.

And then the storm broke in all of its raging torment. He turned and saw the black tide of the enemy pouring in through the gap in the wall. The firelight gleamed on their armor, wet with melting snow. The firelight gleamed on their forest of spears, on the arrows flickering through the dim light, on the helms shuttering their faces. The ground shook with the stamp of their marching feet. Blades flashed in the darkness and then there was no time for anything, not even to listen for the sound of her voice again. There was no time for anything except to fight. Declan drew his sword and plunged in. The fluidity of the battle line pulled him back and forth, eddying closer to the solitary horseman standing in the gap, and then pushed farther away like driftwood on a bloody tide. He fought in a numb haze, his body weary but moving smoothly through the patterns, adapting and counter-adapting to every minute change around him. He moved through a blur of swords and faceless attackers. The snowflakes whirled around him, spattered red before they could reach the ground. Something made him glance to his right. A different sound, a new taste on the wind, perhaps the pearl hanging around his neck. He angled right, swiveling around each new attacker, administering death almost absentmindedly. It was definitely the pearl. It nudged at him insistently.

Declan smelled them before he saw them. Fishermen and dockworkers. They brought the scent of the sea with them. Salt and fish and the sweet decay of seaweed. They surged past him like a wave, yelling and cursing. He was caught up in their attack and found himself fighting at the tip of a wedge driven into the enemy’s flank. A giant of a man with a cleaver in each hand and still wearing his fish scale–smeared apron roared alongside him. The cleavers blurred through the air, chopping through helms and hauberks just as quickly and as efficiently as, no doubt, they chopped through haddock. The black ranks broke before them, retreating, and then counterattacked in sudden and vicious steel. The fishermen were thrown back in a flurry of blood. They regrouped in a narrow side street leading away from the city wall. Declan found himself still beside the man with the cleavers. The fish butcher turned and grinned down at him. His breath stank of ale.

“Ain’t nothing like a good fight, eh?” shouted the man. His voice boomed and carried over the sounds of the battle. He laughed, the sound as loud as the tolling of the harbor bell, and turned to holler at the others crowded around them in the street. “Another go at the bastards, right, mates?” He was answered with a cheer. The fish butcher looked down again at Declan. Something flickered behind his eyes. The sea, gray and cold. For a moment, Declan thought he could hear the rumble of the surf. The pearl pulsed against his chest.