Call For The Dead

XIV

Al1 the black birds had joined us. They were big. I called them albatrosses, but their size was the only thing they had in common. They lined up between us and the wizard. Their pupilless yellow eyes seemed to take in everything at the same time.

They were doing their damndest to make sure we knew they were there.

I had always been aware of them. For me they had become as much a part of Dragon as Colgrave or myself. What were they? Lurkers over carrion? Celestial emissaries? Sometimes, because I sympathized with their plight, I wanted to make them something more than what they were.

Those sentinels posted by a dead man were as trapped as we. Maybe more than we were. Their exit might be even narrower.

Neither Colgrave nor the creature in red paid them any heed. To those two the birds were squawking nuisances left from another time.

Those squawking nuisances had been trying to guide us since our recall. We had seldom heeded them. Maybe we should have.

Why were they trying to intercede? That had to be beyond their original writ. That, surely, had been but to keep their summoner informed of what was happening amongst things he could only banish, not destroy.

I suppose his lastsecond death compelled them to interpret their mission for themselves.

One squawked and threw itself into the pentagram.

There were sorceries upon that bird. It was nothing of this world. The spells shielding the thing in red were less efficacious against it than they had been against arrow, dagger, or amulet.

Nonetheless, it fell before it reached the sorcerer. The stench of smoldering feathers assailed my nostrils. Smoke boiled off the writhing bird. It emitted some of the most pathetic sounds I had ever heard.

Then, like the bird the sorcerer had downed at sea, it became a snake of smoke and slithered off like black lightning, through air and cellar wall.... I presumed.

The thing in red had begun some silent enchantment. We now faced it amidst a vast plain, walled by mists instead of limestone.

A second bird threw itself into the pentacle the instant the first changed and hurtled off.

It penetrated a foot farther. Then a third flopped clumsily forward, achieving perhaps fourteen inches more than the second.

Mica's voice echoed eerily from the mist behind us. "Captain. Bowman. Hurry up. There's a big mob in the street. They're armed. We're in trouble if they break in."

Another bird hurled itself at the sorcerer. This one managed to sink its beak into an ankle.

The sorcerer called down a thunderbolt. It scattered flesh and feathers.

Another leapt.

The Old Man said, "Have Toke and Tor gather the men behind the house, Sailmaker. If we're not up in ten minutes, go back to Dragon. Tell them not to wait for us. They'll have to clear the estuary before the fleet gets back from Cape Blood."

"Captain!"

I could read Mica's thoughts. What would they do without Colgrave? Dragon would become lifeless without the dead captain's will animating it.

"Do as I say, Sailmaker."

Two black birds threw themselves into the pentacle together. The sorcerer got the first in midair. The second landed in his lap, tearing with beak and talons.

They had to be driven by more than their original assignment. Maybe the gods were interceding....

Barley clambered to his feet with the Old Man's help. He was groggy. Colgrave dithered round him.

The grumble of a crowd working itself up reached the cellar.

We were in trouble.

"Maybe we ought to run for it," Priest suggested.

Colgrave hit him with that one cold eye. "Colgrave doesn't run." Then, "We have an enemy here." He indicated the thing in red. "He's decided to send us back. We have to stop him. Sixty men counting on us.... I don't want any of us to go back. It's for forever this time."

"I'll buy that," I muttered. It reflected my thinking of the moment. But I was surprised to hear it from the Old Man. It was not his kind of thinking.

It seemed that the black birds had been trying to stop us from compounding our sins. That was all I could get their admonitory squawks to add to. "Sorry, guys," I murmured. A sin or two looked necessary for the greater welfare.

I did not want to see that quiet, fog-bound sea again. Eighteen years was long enough. The others felt the same.

I could see just one way to get out of it. Kill the sorcerer in red. Another murder.

What was one more death on my soul? I asked myself. Not a pennyweight.

The last black bird hurled itself into the pentagram.

The sorcerer was covered with blood, reddening its clothing even more. Pain had destroyed the delicacy of its face. And yet a tiny smile began to stretch its lips again.

I drew to my ear and let an arrow fly.

The others had the same idea at the same instant. The Trolledyngjan hurled his ax. Priest and Barley flung themselves against the waning Power of the pentagram. Colgrave drew his blade and followed at a more casual pace. The Trolledyngjan whipped out a dagger and joined him.

My arrow and the Trolledyngjan's ax did not survive the smashing fist of a lightning bolt. Both weapons touched the creature in red, but only lightly.

The last bird became another serpent of night and slithered off to wherever they went when they devolved.

The spells protecting the sorcerer gnawed at Priest and Barley. They screamed like souls in torment.

And kept on.

They were Colgrave's favorite hounds, those two. Because nothing stopped them.

They had been the two most dreaded-in-fighters on the western seas.

A continual low moan emanated from the Trolledyngjan. Colgrave made no sound at all. He just leaned ahead like a man striding into a gale, his eye fixed on the sorcerer's throat.

Priest and Barley went down. They writhed the way the birds had. But they kept trying to get to the creature in red. Barley's blade struck sparks from the stone beside the wizard's ankle.

Its smile grew larger. It thought it was winning.

I sped three arrows as fast as I could.

The first did no good at all. The second pinked him lightly. It distracted him for an instant.

His attackers surged at him, threatening to bury him.

I sent my third arrow beneath Colgrave's upraised arm. It buried itself in the creature's heart.

The Old Man's blade fell. It sliced the flesh away from one side of that delicate face.

The thing slowly stood. A mournful wail came from between its motionless lips. The sound rose in pitch and grew louder and louder. I dropped my bow and clapped my hands over my ears.

That did not help. The sound battered me till I ached.

The Trolledyngjan was down with Priest and Barley. I did not expect them to rise ever again.

The creature in red touched Colgrave. My captain started to drop too.

He fell slowly, like a mighty kingdom crumbling.

"Go, Bowman," he told me in a voice that was hardly a whisper, yet which I heard through the sorcerer's wail. "Take Dragon back to sea. Save the men."

"Captain!" I seized his arm and tried to drag him away. The thing in red touched him. The touch anchored the Old Man.

"Get the hell out of here!" he growled. "I'll handle him."

"But...."

"That's an order, Bowman."

He was my Captain. These were my comrades. My friends.

"Will you get the hell gone?"

He used the old Colgrave's voice. It was strong. Compelling. I could defy it then no more than ever before. I seized my bow and fled.