The Swordbearer

Chapter Sixteen

The Maurath

"The man has his occasional flash of brilliance," Ye-don Hildreth observed. He, Gathrid and Rogala were watching Ahlert's approach from the Maurath's roof. "But he's bet everything on one pass of the dice."

Even with the addition of western renegades and his allies from Bochantin, Ahlert had fewer troops than he had brought across the Karato.

"You should always hold something back," Hildreth said. "You've got to keep a surprise or two tucked away. And you should, by damn, have an exit in case things go sour."

Gathrid peered across the countryside. The Mindak's western friends were having a good time plundering the farm villages.

Count Cuneo continued to think aloud. "He can't starve us out. He'd have to close the lanes to the sea to do that. I don't see how he can take the Maurath and cross the Causeway, either. He's in a spot. He has to take Sartain before Malmberget arrives. If he doesn't, he's dead."

"He's got a plan," Rogala said.

"Of course he does. He wouldn't be here if he didn't. I'm just trying to figure out what the hell it is. Wish I'd beaten him to Avenevoli."

As soon as he had convinced himself that Ahlert was coming, Hildreth had taken the Guards east in hopes of repeating his famed victory. The Mindak, probably through the agency of Magnolo Belfiglio, had anticipated him. His cavalry had taken the ferries and the heights overlooking them. The Count had retired without offering battle.

"I doubt he's found anything to replace Nieroda and the Toal," Gathrid said. "And he knows the Sword is here. He's trying to bluff us. Or his dreams of conquest have driven him completely mad."

Rogala's permanent companion, Gacioch, chuckled wickedly. He refused to reveal what he found amusing. When the dwarf threatened to put chains through his ears and wear him as a necklace, he did remark, "The caverns of Ansorge contain more evils than you ever thought, Theis."

Gathrid could not fathom the remark. Rogala seemed aggravated by it.

Magnolo Belfiglio, by informing his master of Count Cuneo's thoughts, would allow Ahlert a tactical advantage, Gathrid thought. But that would not reduce the Maurath and its satellite subfortresses.

They were too formidable for the host the Mindak had brought.

"He's not wasting time," Rogala remarked.

It was early. Ahlert had spent the night camped beyond the promontory from which Gathrid had first seen Sartain. His forces were dividing into units facing the outer line of fortresses. Some of them would have to be reduced before the Maurath could be approached. Their war engines had punishing, overlapping fields of fire.

Attacking those outer works would be expensive. Each boasted a garrison of six hundred seasoned Guards supported by a dozen skilled Brothers. The fortilices had been designed by the best military architects of recent centuries. Neither Rogala nor Hildreth believed Ahlert's manpower resources sufficient to reduce more than two or three.

Then there was the Maurath, the elephantine, wolverine fortress designed to withstand the efforts of a hundred thousand attackers.

The more he thought about the situation, the more nervous Gathrid became. The Mindak had to be armed with something really devastating.

Ahlert's forces moved with a swiftness and precision amazing for such a mixed bag of fighting men.

Men in dark armor, on dark horses, advanced under a flag of truce. Behind them, Ventimiglian quartermasters spread out across the abandoned fields, staking out campsites and erecting biers for the expected dead. They trampled the freshly planted crops. A company of peasant militiamen near Gathrid cursed and shook their fists.

"There's confidence for you," Rogala muttered. "He figures he'll be here long enough to properly care for his dead." No biers had been erected before the battle at Kacalief.

"At least he's still realist enough to expect casualties," Hildreth replied.

The parleying party stopped at a respectful distance. Only the Mindak and his standardbearer came closer.

"Don't look directly at him," Gathrid warned. "He's wearing the Ordrope Diadem."

"Grellner's toy?" Hildreth asked. "I wasn't sure he'd recovered it."

"Don't be surprised by anything. Ansorge is a cellar filled with black miracles."

"Let's go see what he's got to say."

Above the tunnel through the Maurath was an alcove-balcony for confrontations such as this. The tunnel itself had been sealed by massive stones forced up from road level by water pumped into chambers beneath them. The tunnel, in theory, would be harder to break through than the immensely thick wall of the Maurath itself.

"Gathrid. Theis." The Mindak wore what appeared to be a genuinely friendly smile. "Glad to see that you're still well. I'd feared for your health. These westerners are treacherous."

Aarant prodded Gathrid. "They are that. It hasn't been that long since I heard one of their Kings plotting to betray the rest to you."

"Ah. Poor Kimach. You see? He was a greedy man. And a fool. He was a flawed tool at best. He would have broken in heavy work. And he knew it. No doubt he's happier where he is now. The gentleman with you, I presume, is the renowned Count Cuneo?"

Hildreth bowed slightly. Because Ahlert had chosen to speak Old Petralian, the formalities had to be observed. "I'd hoped to meet you earlier, Sir."

"At Avenevoli? But I was there! I heard you were in the area. I'm sorry we missed each other."

"Such is luck. Such is luck. I suppose conditions weren't propitious for any early meeting."

"And Mead?" Gathrid interjected. "I trust she's well?"

Ahlert managed to look startled, wistful, and mildly annoyed. "Magnolo says she's as well as can be expected. She bore me a son two days ago." He glanced eastward for a fraction of a second, his dream momentarily interrupted by the anxieties of a husband. "Your lady, too, is resting well. I knew you would've wanted the right thing done. I took the liberty of having artisans prepare a suitable resting place. And another for your sister as well." He peered at Gathrid intently, as if trying to determine whether or not the youth were surprised. "May we all have the good fortune to revisit those places and people whence our heartroots spring."

Hildreth was puzzled by the personal exchange. He brought the conversation back to the present.

"That's a big traveling party you've brought on your pilgrimage to pledge fealty to the Empire."

"When one visits Sartain, I'm told, no display of pomp and power is too great."

"This one isn't great enough."

"Perhaps not. Yet we petition entry, and audience with the Emperor and Fray Magister. I note that the latter isn't represented in your party. That's curious."

"He finds himself occupied elsewhere. No doubt he'll be heartbroken when he hears that you departed without making his acquaintance."

Mulenex and the best minds of the Brotherhood were deep in the bowels of the Raftery. They were trying to discover the source of the Mindak's confidence. And some means of negating it.

"That would never do. I'll have to insist on paying him a visit."

"The Emperor has bid us tell all would-be visitors that the Causeway is closed. My apologies, Sir."

Gathrid found the evasions and false politenesses amusing. Petralian was a language for diplomats.

It seemed to have been specially shaped for men who wished to avoid being pinned down.

"That's final? Beyond compromise?"

"Unfortunately."

"A pity, though not unanticipated. Gathrid, my best. Theis, the same to you. Have you heard from our friend from Sommerlath? She'd be interested in our reunion, I think."

So, Gathrid thought. He knows Nieroda survived. And he doesn't consider her a danger at the moment.

"No. Nothing," he replied. Probing with little hope of illumination, "You wouldn't know where she is, would you?''

The Mindak smiled a tired, wary smile. "She's where she always is when you don't see her. Looking over your shoulder. I suppose there's nothing more to be said. Count?"

Hildreth's frown suggested he was puzzled by the exchange. "That's all."

"So be it, then. So be it." Ahlert returned to his party. As he went, he thrust an arm toward the east, making a come hither gesture.

Hildreth asked, "What's that about?"

Gathrid shrugged. "I don't know him that well."

"We'll find out the hard way," Rogala said. "Let's get back upstairs."

When they reached the battlements they saw that a low, dense blackness now masked the eastern skyline. Occasional clouds surged up, collapsed back into the on-rushing wave.

"A storm?" Hildreth wondered. "Out of the east? Signalmen. Pass the final alert."

Men with wigwag flags and mirrors communicated with Sartain and the satellite fortresses, bringing them to maximum readiness.

The Mindak reshuffled his forces but did not attack.

Gathrid stared eastward. The darkness drew closer. In places great banks of blackness rose to obscure the morning sun. His nervousness grew, though there was nothing to do but wait. There were no more preparations to make.

"Those are birds or something," he gasped. "Big ones, too."

Hildreth swore. "We should have nets."

"Too late," Rogala said.

The Count signaled the island anyway. "We'll strip the fishing fleet. For the next attack."

Gacioch laughed. "That's what I like. A man with a positive outlook."

"Shut up!" Rogala snarled.

It grew dark. Gathrid muttered, "I hope this place is as invincible as everyone claims." He had his doubts now.

The things were terrier-sized. They had long leathery wings and jaws like crocodiles. Hundreds of thousands descended on the Maurath. Their stench was overpowering. Gathrid felt as though he had fallen into a bat cave as big as the world. He swung Daubendiek in a murderous blur.

The things had no flavor. There was no evil in them, nor even the rage of attack. Their little animal souls were bland. Hunger was all they knew.

They had been created in a time more eld than Niero-da's Sommerlath, as tools for just this sort of attack. Like knives, they cared not how they were wielded. Their only imperative was to increase their numbers against their next employment.

The Dark People of Ansorge had removed them from the earth and sealed them in stasis in caverns far beneath their city. Ahlert's investigators had stumbled onto readable instructions for controlling them.

Gathrid suspected a twitch of the hand of Chuchain.

Daubendiek howled with joy. It preferred drinking the blood of men, but was happy enough with this.

The Guards Oldani, Imperial army and Sartain's militia merely howled. The attackers had no more self-concern than army ants. They drove through a storm of arrows and flung themselves against upraised blades. They plunged past the massed defenses of the Brotherhood, and ripped spellcasters to pieces.

The only defense was cover.

Ahlert began his advance. The winged things did not harry his people. His allies, in forces a thousand strong, assaulted each of the satellite fortresses. The defenders managed a few wild shots from their engines, but were so preoccupied with flyers that they could not reload.

It seemed a hundred flyers replaced every dozen downed. The attacking cloud grew more and more dense. Bodies piled a yard deep atop the Maurath.

A larger cloud swarmed over Sartain. Gathrid hoped the civilians would bar their doors and windows and wait the storm out.

It did not break. It did not let up. The winged things forced the Guards to retreat to the interiors of the smaller fortresses. Ahlert's troops threw up ladders and climbing ropes. Arrows shot from embrasures too narrow for the flyers took their toll, but the point had been won. The defenders would be overcome inside their citadels.

The embittered Ventimiglian veterans began advancing on the Maurath.

Hildreth, Gathrid, and Rogala fought as a team. While the taller men stood back to back, keeping the air around them clear, the dwarf finished wounded flyers and pitched carcasses off the wall.

It was rough work for everyone but Gathrid, who received energy from the Sword. Hildreth was first to confess exhaustion. "Got to get under cover and rest," he gasped. "This way." They were the last to leave the roof.

Gathrid examined the Ventimiglians as he shielded Hildreth's effort to open a door. It had become so dark the easterners had to carry torches. They were advancing with drillground precision.

The Maurath, unlike the outer works, had towers and turrets. The Ventimiglians encountered heavy arrow fire and a rain of burning pitch balls spewed by an engine of Hildreth's invention. The latter caused more confusion than damage.

The masonry shuddered.

"What was that?" Hildreth demanded. The Count had collapsed the moment they were safely inside.

Now he clawed at Rogala, trying to regain his feet.

Calls of "Count Cuneo! Count Cuneo!" echoed up from the lower levels. Gathrid and Rogala trailed Hildreth round and round a circular stair, back down to the level where they had spoken with Ahlert. A Guards officer directed the Count to an observation port opening on the tunnel through the fortress.

Ahlert's thaumaturges had begun pulverizing the blocking stones. "That'll take them forever," the Count said, unworried. "I need a messenger."

"Here, Sir."

"Go up top and round me up four Blues. Bring them here."

"Yes, Sir."

The Brothers were still trying to decimate the flyers. Their task appeared hopeless. The roof of the Maurath was buried four feet deep in bodies. Blood flooded the scuppers meant to drain the roof. It was backing up. In places it leaked through, clogging the Maurath's upper levels with its smell.

Gathrid found the magnitude of the assault stupefying.

Four shaky Blues reported. At Cuneo's direction they began exchanging sorceries with the Ventimiglians in the tunnel.

Gathrid peeped through an aperture into the gloom outside. Bochantin's banners now flew over several satellite fortresses, though fighting apparently continued within them. "What time is it getting to be, Theis?"

The dwarf growled something.

"Been going on only an hour? Seems like all day already. ''

More lead-footed hours slogged past. Hildreth's men fought stubbornly, but the Ventimiglians established a foothold on the ramparts. They began expanding it, bringing up men for an attack into the Maurath's interior.

"It's going to be long and bloody," Hildreth predicted. He remained undaunted. "Despite his numbers, he can't capture the Maurath. It'll be a different story when his men have to come inside." He checked the tunnel. A stubborn enemy persisted in his efforts to clear it. "That's his main thrust there. Trying to break through to the Causeway."

"I could go after Ahlert," Gathrid suggested.

Hildreth laughed.

"With a million flyers to swarm you?" Rogala snorted derisively. "There you go getting romantic again. Listen, son. Don't start getting the idea you're invincible. Bet there's nothing Ahlert would like better than to have you come after him."

Aarant concurred. "Be patient. The confrontation will come when both Suchara and Chuchain think it's to their advantage."

"You just don't want to risk getting killed."

"Damned right I don't. This isn't exactly living, but it's damned well better than being dead.''

"Then so was being run by a Toal."'

Aarant became very cold and vacant. "No. Death would be better than that."

Gathrid reflected on the Mindak and grew cold. Ahlert was as much Chosen as he. They were pawns of the Great Old Ones. Soon one of them would have to die... . The inevitability of it made him want to scream. He checked the smaller fortresses. "Hey. Looks like he's breaking off out there."

Hildreth edged him aside. "You're right. Figures he's done enough damage, and the flyers will keep them neutralized."

The Count sounded deflated. Aarant suggested, "He's in over his head and can't admit it."

"You're right. Sartain doesn't have anybody else to turn to. The responsibility is getting to him."

Count Cuneo had faced no sorcery at Avenevoli, and at the Beklavac narrows control responsibility had rested on other shoulders. When it fell entirely upon him, he could not make quick decisions.

He did not know what to do. He was wasting his men of Power by deploying them as he would ordinary soldiers. The Brothers were his most valuable tools, and he was frittering them away because he understood neither their strengths nor limitations.

Gathrid prowled his backbrain, trying to locate the memories of Sagis Gruhala. Aarant saw his thrust. He contributed the memories of witchmen he had slain. Many were the great ones, the old ones, whose names still rang in legend.

What Gathrid wanted was not to be found in any of their minds. "Messenger," he said to one of the youngsters who dogged the Count. "I want you to assemble me a list of all the Brothers assigned to the Maurath. Find out where they're stationed and what their specialties are." He hoped something in writing would jar his mind into yielding what he needed.

"What're you doing?" Hildreth demanded.

"We can't do much about the flyers, right? So why don't we address ourselves to something we can handle? And I think we've been taking too defensive a stance."

Historically, Hildreth had been at his best on the defensive. As a young mercenary he had won his reputation defending small lords from the predations of their more powerful neighbors. It was that skill which had brought him to Elgar's attention. The real miracle of Avenevoli was not that Hildreth had won there, but that he had done so with essentially offensive maneuvers. The results at Katich were more characteristic of his few offensive attempts.

After the one challenge Cuneo seemed content to permit Gathrid his way.

Rogala whispered, "The man's had his head under the axe so long that he'll jump at any chance to share the responsibility.''

"Won't matter who's responsible," Gathrid replied. "Unless we can scrounge up a miracle."

"Folks would get in line to claim credit in that case. But don't be so pessimistic, son. Ahlert has his limits. Like no reserves. He's losing his momentum now."

"Excuse me a minute." Gathrid took twenty. He spent them chatting with Guardsmen, soldiers and militiamen. He found them less beaten than he had supposed. To a man they still believed in Daubendiek, the possibility of victory, and in Count Cuneo.

Gathrid told Rogala.

"You want to see morale rise, stick around." Amidst everything else, Hildreth had been organizing a counterattack against the Ventimiglians on the ramparts. It was now near jumpoff time.

"How so?"

"The old fox was holding back. On everybody but Elgar and a few engineers. Apparently even the Mindak's mindreader missed it."

"What?"

"That there are tunnels connecting the Maurath with the outer fortresses. They're designed collapsible. And completely secret, so the men stationed out there wouldn't get lax knowing they had an easy out."

Gathrid felt he had to re-evaluate Hildreth once again. As long as Ahlert had been willing to spend lives to take the satellites, Hildreth had been willing to defend them. He was a hard commander.

Gathrid glanced outside. Belfiglio knew about the tunnels now. He had informed his master. Troops were racing back to the fortresses, hoping to seize the passages before they were destroyed.

"They're too late," Rogala observed.

Sections of grainfield were falling in. From the dungeons of the Maurath came the clatter of the garrisons arriving.

"We'd better move now," Gathrid said. "While they're disorganized and we're in good spirits." The counterattack was ready. Redistributed according to their talents, he hoped the Brothers would make possible a counterstroke unhindered by flyers.

The key was a noxious gas. He had found a White Brother using it to protect a remote tower.

Hildreth could not climb back to the higher levels. Gathrid took over for him. He assembled the men in a hall below the Maurath's roof, told the White Brother to explain.

The man indicated several big copper kettles and a mound of rags. "Tear off strips of cloth and soak them in this brine. Tie them around your faces, covering your mouths and noses. As long as you breathe through the rags, the spells on this brine will protect you from the gas. Take an extra cloth to wipe your eyes and use if you lose what you're wearing. If you do find yourself breathing the gas direct, get below as fast as you can. Prolonged exposure will make you quite miserable. Sir?"

Gathrid went first, and allowed the White Brother to adjust the rag bandana he fixed across his face. "How long will this last?" he asked.

"There's enough oil in the mixture to make it good for an hour," the Brother said. "If the mask starts feeling dry and salty, you might want to duck back down and get a fresh one. That's a point. Don't use the same one over again... ." He went on till Gathrid lost patience.

"Let's get with it," the youth snapped. "You men, line up. Brother, get up there and start your gas."

Fifteen minutes later the youth gave the signal. Men yanked the bolts holding the heavy doors.

Gathrid charged besiegers amidst a rolling cloud. Ventimiglians coughed and gagged around him, heaving up their breakfasts and clawing their eyes. They went down under Dau-bendiek's furious blows. The flyers, blinded, began colliding. Gathrid kept pausing to wipe the sting from his eyes with a rag he carried in his left hand.

He felt terrible, even protected. How much worse the enemy felt he did not care to imagine.

The counterattack spread like oil on water, groups from different sallyports joining forces.

Brothers came out behind the soldiers. They hurled their Powers against the flyers.

Gathrid ripped through Ventimiglian platoons like a scythe through wheat. He searched for enemy captains.

The most important were obvious. They were men of Power, standing in small islands of sanity, trying to disperse the gas. Spells Aarant recognized as wind-callings rumbled across their lips.

It was a slaughter till one Ventimiglian did manage to summon a breeze. Daubendiek stole so many lives Gathrid became lost in their complexities. Aarant was supposed to integrate them, but could not handle the flood.

Some of the enemy trampled their brethren in their haste to escape.

Gradually, the gas did disperse. And then the flyers could not be turned back. The counterstroke collapsed.

"Valiant effort, lad," Count Cuneo said after Gathrid abandoned the action. He had come within minutes and yards of clearing the ramparts. "It bought time. It'll be dark before they regain their strength. Let's hope they wait till morning to break in. Meantime, I need your help down here."

Gathrid was staggering. "I need some rest."

"One of the tunnels didn't collapse the way it should have," Hildreth explained. "They managed to get some people through. We've got to push them out before we can demolish the passage."

Ahlert kept Gathrid rushing hither and yon all night, stemming threat after threat. And all the while the Ven-timiglian wizards and engineers kept grinding away at the tunnel, to the Causeway.

Dawn came. It brought Rogala with news. "The flyers have left us."

"What?" The youth was too tired to concentrate.

"They're all attacking the island now. Folks over there are showing a little ingenuity. They're rigging nets over the Causeway. Under the nets, carpenters are boxing in a wooden passage."

"What good does that do?"

"We're cut off till they get here. We couldn't get out if it turned bad. Meantime, Hildreth wants to hit Ahlert's tunnel crew. Sartain is done for if they break through."

Sighing, Gathrid took up the Sword once more. Soon he found himself astride a horse, about to lead a hundred men in a charge from a hidden sallyport.

Fearful sorceries met the surprise attack. Brothers in the Maurath replied with sorceries of their own.

Gathrid hacked and slashed in fighting so close the dead remained upright in their saddles. The Ventimigli-ans concentrated on him. In those brief intervals when he won a respite, he stood in his stirrups and searched for the Mindak.

The man was nowhere to be seen.

But he was out there, employing archers and slingers with a callous disregard for the allegiances of the men being hit by his missiles.

There was little Daubendiek could do to shield Gathrid from a random arrow. "Back inside!" he ordered. "We've done all we can." He covered his companions' withdrawal.

As Rogala removed Gathrid's helmet, the youth sensed bad news. Count Cuneo's eyes were distant.

His face was rigid with despair. "What happened?"

Hildreth opened his mouth. Nothing came- out but a croaky gobble.

"We've been suckered," Rogala replied. "We've been thoroughly swindled."

"How?"

"This whole attack was a diversion. The Count finally managed to contact the island."

"And?"

"The Imperial Brigade landed near Galen during the night."

"What? How did they manage that?"

"With boats. A lot of boats. Seems Ahlert commandeered every boat and barge while coming down from Torun. He cleared the Blackstun and the Ondr. He assembled them behind the promontory there. Last night they slipped out and made a landing on the island. The Count's best men are out here.

Nothing but militia in Sartain."

Gathrid handed his horse to a groom. He sat on the floor, rested his back against a wall. "And we can't send help because of the flyers."

"Right. Even if we could afford to break the men loose."

"There's a million people on the island," Gathrid muttered. "Can't they hold off one brigade themselves?"

He realized he had slipped into Suchara-thinking. Damn the casualties! He was disgusted with himself. "How bad is it, Theis?"

Rogala shrugged. "Who can tell? They're holding out. They're covering the Causeway. But Ahlert put in his best. Only time will tell."

Time had nothing to reveal before sundown. Though weariness depressed the tempo of the fighting, it continued. News from Sartain remained sketchy. A quarter of the vast city appeared to have been captured. The Imperial Brigade had bogged down for lack of strength to exploit its coup. It appeared to have trapped the Fray Magister in the Raftery.

That night Gathrid found time to sleep. And for the first time in months his Toal-haunt plagued him.

He was dreaming confused dreams, his brain laboring at the Augean task of integrating the souls Daubendiek had devoured, when it began. Sudden, vicious, determined, it hit him. It was a cold evil intent on making him its own. There was no warning. One moment there was nothing, the next a reverberating shock as it smashed in, driving tentacles into his soul. The sleepy semiawareness that was Gathrid of Kacalief almost succumbed.

Tureck Aarant never slept. He was like Rogala in that respect. He fought the Toal. He gave Gathrid time to assume control, to begin resisting.

They seemed lost in another universe, the youth and his enemy.

Gathrid interpreted the struggle in symbols he could understand. While aware that his body lay on a rude barracks cot, foaming at the mouth and speaking in tongues, he lived a savage unarmed combat with a faceless foe whose muscles were iron, who whispered of devouring him. Back and forth across a cold, featureless plain they battled, beneath moons and stars that might have been the faces of mocking gods. The chill evil of the Toal filtered deep into his being, to the dark recesses where his worst fears and blackest desires lay hidden, straining at their chains.

Rogala, Hildreth, and a dozen Brothers and physicians stood by, unable to help, unsure, even, that this was the attack of Covingont being repeated. At first the dwarf thought Gathrid's mind had snapped under the assault of too many new personalities.

In that inside place Gathrid realized that he was losing. His opponent knew neither fear nor fatigue, and had nothing to lose. It could maintain the assault indefinitely. Panic lashed the youth.

In a moment of inspiration, Rogala placed the Sword in his hands.

Another apparition materialized on Gathrid's subjective plain. Tureck Aarant looked down on the struggle. He radiated an infinite sadness. He was his own master no more. His ancient mistress had reclaimed him.

He waded in with the chill fearlessness of the Aarant of legend. Suchara's will drove him. Hatred marred his features, curses distended his mouth. There was no escaping the mistress.

His was a hopeless mission. His ages enslaved to a Toal had left him vulnerable. As it had promised Gathrid it would do him, the Toal-monster did Tureck Aarant.

Others of Gathrid's stolen souls bombarded him with unwanted advice. They feared for him. He was their immortality.

He did accept the advice of an assassin from Torun. He got behind the Toal and tried strangling it with a forearm... .

Those were his perceptions. The reality was a pure battle of wills.

Aarant's will was not strong enough. As the Toal twitched in Gathrid's arms, before spinning away into the plane of Hell whence it had been summoned in ages past, it took a last killing bite.

The saga of Tureck Aarant ended at last. His personality faded. Only his memories remained.

Gathrid felt hollow, incomplete, as if some critical organ had been ripped from his chest.

He had lost his best friend.

He sat and wept. For a while he shook uncontrollably. Great moaning sobs racked his body.

The body in the Maurath responded in the same fashion. Rogala gaped.

And outside the Maurath the battle continued. The attempt to connect island and fortress beneath a wooden canopy collapsed. The Ventimiglian penetration of the fortress highwatered and began to fade. But Ahlert's wizards had the great tunnel two-thirds cleared.

All through the night Ahlert's boats ferried troops to Sartain. A dark stain spread on the map of the island. Anderle's diminutive navy intercepted many of the Min-dak's boats. The Imperial Brigade proved unable to take the Raftery.

Ahlert had lost his momentum.

Gathrid regained his self-control. He covered his embarrassment with a show of business. "It's been two days. Any news from Malmberget?" His companions shook their heads. Hildreth, looking ashen, did not respond at all. "What's wrong with the Count?" the youth asked.

"Had a go at their gate-clearing party," Rogala replied. "Took an arrow. Stubborn old coot hid it.

Nobody noticed till he was ready to keel over from loss of blood."

"He do any good?"

"Not enough. I figure they'll break through in another hour. We'll cut them up some while they make the passage, but there's no way to stop them all."

"Thought this place was supposed to be able to hold out forever. Katich did better without our resources."

"Katich didn't have to deal with those flyers. Even so, you've got a point. The engineers shouldVe given more thought to the fact that the defenders might have to face sorcery.''

Gathrid reflected. The gantlet would be expensive for the men passing through. Each one who fell in the tunnel would make the journey more difficult for others. The Mindak might waste half his army before succeeding.

Gathrid was sure Ahlert would try. His obsession would compel him. "Theis, better think about what we'll do if Sartain falls."

A messenger rushed in. He tried to report to Count Cuneo. "The flyers are back! They're driving them inside."

"Inside the Maurath?" Gathrid asked. "Yes, Sir. They're all over the upper level." The youth dragged himself upright. "Help me with my armor, Theis. We should Ve expected this."

"There're a lot of things we should have expected;" Rogala said. "Only we didn't."

"They won't have room. ..." Hildreth protested weakly. He seemed to be coming back.

"They don't need any," Gathrid retorted. "They just have to keep us distracted till Ahlert breaks through." He addressed the Brothers present. "Block the stairwells and barricade the doorways.

Keep them off the tunnel levels." "What's Ahlert going to do with Sartain once he gets it?" Rogala asked. "He hasn't taken the Maurath. He'd have to fight his way out again."

Gathrid could not answer that. Only the Mindak knew why he wanted the Queen City so badly.

He considered allowing a reversal of roles. For an instant only. There were a million people on the island. He and these soldiers were here to protect those people, not to defeat Ahlert. The Mindak would show them little mercy. Rogala would say so what. Let Ahlert through. The people of Sartain would fight. They would hurt their conquerors. Malmberget could clean up what remained.

The dwarf's focus was a little narrow sometimes. "Theis, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't know why he wants Sartain himself. I don't think he's thought about it. It's a move in Chuchain's game.

It's an end in itself." "Dumb."

"Not so tight with that lace. I want both arms loose.

And you don't have room to criticize, Servant of Su-chara."

Rogala yanked the lace tight. "Sartain is symbolic to the Power Ahlert serves," he admitted.

"Chuchain will score a few points if his champion captures the city.''

Gacioch whooped crazily. Rogala glared at the demon. "That was a howler, eh?"

Gathrid listened carefully. That was one of the demon's augury laughs. They always presaged some special unpleasantness. As usual, Gacioch refused to elucidate.

"Theis, that critter is starting to irritate me." His latest bout with his Toal-haunt had left everything to do with higher and lower planes, demonology and Power, irking him tremendously. He had lost his only friend... . Why, of all times, had it chosen to strike now? In what way had Nieroda profited? "I think I'll stuff him in a sack with fifty pounds of rock and drop him into the Sound."

Gacioch hooted merrily. "Not today, son. Not today. You're going to be busier than a one-legged sword dancer."

Gathrid gathered his weapons.

"What're you doing?" Rogala demanded. He did not like the Nieroda-blade.

"What I should have done a long time ago. I'm going after Ahlert. Make sure the tunnel control areas are sealed. Especially at the Causeway end. And bring enough Brothers to neutralize anything his wizards throw around. Find me a couple of carpenters. ..."