Things changed after the Captain’s visit. The men became
more alert. Elmo’s influence waxed while mine waned. A less
wishy-washy, more inflexible tone characterized the Company
deputation. Every man became ready to move at an instant’s
notice.
Communications improved dramatically while time available for
sleep declined painfully. None of us were ever out of touch more
than two hours. And Elmo found excuses to get everyone but himself
out of Duretile, into places where the Taken would have trouble
finding them. Asa became my ward out on the black castle slope.
Tension mounted. I felt like one of a flock of chickens poised
to scatter the moment a fox landed among us. I tried to bleed off
my shakiness by updating the Annals. I had let them slide sadly,
seldom having done more than keep notes.
When the tension became too much for me, I walked uphill to
stare at the black castle.
It was an intentional risk-taking, like that of a child who
crawls out a tree branch overhanging a deadly fall. The closer I
approached the castle, the more narrow my concentration. At two
hundred yards all other cares vanished. I felt the dread of that
place down to my ankle bones and the shallows of my soul. At two
hundred yards I felt what it meant to have the shadow of the
Dominator overhanging the world. I felt what the Lady felt when she
considered her husband’s potential resurrection. Every
emotion became edged with a hint of despair. In a way, the black
castle was more than a gateway through which the
world’s great old evil might reappear. It was a
concretization of metaphorical concepts, and a living symbol. It
did things a great cathedral does. Like a cathedral, it was far more
than an edifice.
I could stare at its obsidian walls and grotesque decoration,
recall Shed’s stories, and never avoid dipping into the
cesspool of my own soul, never avoid searching myself for the
essential decency shelved through most of my adult life. That
castle was, if you like, a moral landmark. If you had a brain. If
you had any sensitivity at all.
There were times when One-Eye, Goblin, Elmo or another of the
men accompanied me. Not one of them went away untouched. They could
stand there with me, talking trivialities about its construction
or, weightily, about its significance in the Company’s
future, and all the while something would be happening inside.
I do not believe in evil absolute. I have recounted that
philosophy in specific elsewhere in the Annals, and it affects my
every observation throughout my tenure as Annalist. I believe in
our side and theirs, with the good and evil decided after the fact,
by those who survive. Among men you seldom find the good with one
standard and the shadow with another. In our war with the Rebel,
eight and nine years ago, we served the side perceived as the
shadow. Yet we saw far more wickedness practiced by the adherents
of the White Rose than by those of the Lady. The villains of the
piece were at least straightforward.
The world knows where it stands with the Lady. It is the Rebel
whose ideals and morals conflict with fact, becoming as changeable
as the weather and as flexible as a snake.
But I digress. The black castle has that effect. Makes you amble
off into all the byways and cul-de-sacs and false trails you have
laid down during your life. It makes you reassess. Makes you want
to take a stand somewhere, even if on the black side. Leaves you
impatient with your own malleable morality.
I suspect that is why Juniper decided to pretend the place did
not exist. It is an absolute demanding absolutes in a world with a
preference for relatives.
Darling was in my thoughts often while I stood below those
black, glossy walls, for she was the castle’s antipode when I
was up there. The white pole, and absolute in opposition to what
the black castle symbolized. I had not been much in her presence
since realizing what she was, but I could recall being morally
unnerved by her, too. I wondered how she would affect me now, after
having had years to grow.
From what Shed said, she did not reek the way the castle did.
His main interest in her had been hustling her upstairs. And Raven
had not been driven into puritanical channels. If anything, he had
slipped farther into the darkness—though for the highest of
motives.
Possibly there was a message there. An observation upon means to
ends. Here was Raven who had acted with the pragmatic amorality of
a prince of Hell, all so he could save the child who represented
the best hope of the world against the Lady and the Dominator.
Oh, ’twould be marvelous if the world and its moral
questions were like some game board, with plain black players and
white, and fixed rules, and nary a shade of grey.
Even Asa and Shed could be made to feel the aura of the castle
if you took them up during the daytime and made them stand there
looking at those fell walls.
Shed especially.
Shed had achieved a position where he could afford conscience
and uncertainty. I mean, he had none of the financial troubles that
had plagued him earlier, and no prospect of digging himself a hole
with us watching him, so he could reflect upon his place in things
and become disgusted with himself. More than once I took him up and
watched as that deep spark of hidden decency flared, twisted him
upon a rack of inner torment.
I do not know how Elmo did it. Maybe he went without sleep for a
few weeks. But when the Company came down out of the Wolanders, he
had an occupation plan prepared. It was crude, to be sure, but
better than any of us expected.
I was in the Buskin, at Shed’s Iron Lily, when the first
rumors raged down the waterfront and stirred one of the most
massive states of confusion I’ve ever seen. Shed’s
wood-seller neighbor swept into the Lily, announced,
“There’s an army coming down out of the pass!
Foreigners! Thousands of them! They
say . . . ”
During the following hour a dozen patrons brought the news. Each
time the army was larger and its purpose more obscure. Nobody knew
what the Company wanted. Various witnesses assigned motives
according to their own fears. Few came anywhere near the mark.
Though the men were weary after so long a march, they spread
through the city quickly, the larger units guided by Elmo’s
men. Candy brought a reinforced company into the Buskin. The worst
slums are always the first site of rebellion, we’ve found.
There were few violent confrontations. Juniper’s citizens
were taken by surprise and had no idea what to fight about anyway.
Most just turned out to watch.
I got myself back up to my squad. This was the time the Taken
would do their deed. If they planned anything.
Nothing happened. As I might have guessed, knowing that men from
our forerunner party were guiding the new arrivals. Indeed, nobody
got in touch with me, up there, for another two days. By then the
city was pacified. Every key point was in our hands. Every state
building, every arsenal, every strong point, even the
Custodians’ headquarters in the Enclosure. And life went on
as usual. What little trouble there was came when Rebel refugees
tried to start an uprising, accurately accusing the Duke of having
brought the Lady to Juniper.
The people of Juniper didn’t much care.
There were problems in the Buskin, though. Elmo wanted to
straighten the slum out. Some of the slum dwellers didn’t
want to be straightened. He used Candy’s company forcefully,
cracking the organizations of the crime bosses. I did not see the
necessity, but wiser heads feared the gangs could become the focus
of future resistance. Anything with that potential had to be
squashed immediately. I think there was a hope the move would win
popular favor, too.
Elmo brought the Lieutenant to my hillside shack the third day
after the Company’s arrival. “How goes it?” I
asked. The Lieutenant had aged terribly since I had seen him last.
The passage westward had been grim.
“City’s secure,” he said. “Stinking
dump, isn’t it?”
“Better believe. It’s all snake’s belly.
What’s up?”
Elmo said, “He needs a look at the target.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
The Lieutenant said, “The Limper says we’re going to
take this place. I don’t know how soon. Captain wants me to
look it over.”
“Fun times tomorrow,” I muttered. “Ain’t
going to grab it on the sneak.” I donned my coat. It was
chilly up on the slopes. Elmo and One-Eye tagged along when I took
the Lieutenant up. He eyeballed the castle, deep in thought.
Finally, he said, “I don’t like it. Not even a little
bit.” He felt the cold dread of the place.
“I got a man who’s been inside,” I said.
“But don’t let the Taken know. He’s supposed to
be dead.”
“What can he tell me?”
“Not much. He’s only been there at night, in a court
behind the gate.”
“Uhm. The Taken have a girl up at Duretile, too. I talked
to her. She couldn’t tell me nothing. Only in there once, and
was too scared to look around.”
“She’s still alive?”
“Yeah. That’s the one you caught? Yeah. She’s
alive. Lady’s orders, apparently. Nasty little witch.
Let’s hike around it.”
We got onto the far slope, where the going was rough, to the
accompaniment of constant crabbing by One-Eye. The Lieutenant
stated the obvious. “No getting at it from here. Not without
help from the Taken.”
“Going to take a big lot of help to get at it from any
direction.”
He looked me a question.
I told him about Feather’s troubles the night we took Shed
and his barmaid.
“Anything since?”
“Nope. Not before, either. My man who’s been inside
never saw anything extraordinary, either. But, dammit, the thing
connects with the Barrowland. It’s got the Dominator behind
it. You know it’s not going to be a pushover. They know
there’s trouble out here.”
One-Eye made a squeaking sound. “What?” the
Lieutenant snapped.
One-Eye pointed. We all looked up the wall, which loomed a good
sixty feet above us. I did not see anything. Neither did the
Lieutenant. “What?” he asked again.
“Something was watching us. Nasty-looking
critter.”
“I saw it too,” Elmo volunteered. “Long,
skinny, yellowish guy with eyes like a snake.”
I considered the wall. “How could you tell from
here?”
Elmo shivered and shrugged. “I could. And I didn’t
like it. Looked like he wanted to bite me.” We dragged on
through brush and over boulders, keeping one eye on the castle, the
other on the down slope. Elmo muttered, “Hungry eyes.
That’s what they were.”
We reached the ridgeline west of the castle. The Lieutenant
paused. “How close can you get?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t had the balls to find
out.”
The Lieutenant moved here, there, as if sighting on something.
“Let’s bring up some prisoners and find out.”
I sucked spittle between my teeth, then said, “You
won’t get the locals anywhere near the place.”
“Think not? How about in exchange for a pardon?
Candy’s rounded up half the villains in the Buskin. Got a
regular anti-crime crusade going. He gets three complaints about
somebody, he nabs them.”
“Sounds a little simple,” I said. We were moving
around for a look at the castle gate. By simple I meant simplistic,
not easy.
The Lieutenant chuckled. Months of hardship had not sapped his
bizarre sense of humor. “Simple minds respond to simple
answers. A few months of Candy’s reforms and the Duke will be
a hero.”
I understood the reasoning. Juniper was a lawless city, ruled by
regional strongmen. There were hordes of Sheds who lived in terror,
continuously victimized. Anyone who lessened the terror would win
their affection. Adequately developed, that affection would survive
later excesses.
I wondered, though, if the support of weaklings was worth much.
Or if, should we successfully infect them with courage, we might
not be creating trouble for ourselves later. Take away daily
domestic oppression and they might imagine oppression on our
part.
I have seen it before. Little people have to hate, have to blame
someone for their own inadequacies.
But that was not the problem of the moment. The moment demanded
immediate, vigorous, violent attention. The castle gate popped open
as we came in line. A half-dozen wild beings in black rushed us. A
fog of lethargy settled upon me, and I found fear fading the moment
it sparked into existence. By the time they were halfway to us, all
I wanted was to lie down.
Pain filled my limbs. My head ached. Cramps knotted my stomach.
The lethargy vanished.
One-Eye was doing strange things, dancing, yelping like a wolf
pup, throwing his hands around like wounded birds. His big, weird
hat flew off and tumbled with the breeze, downhill, till it became
tangled in the brush. Between yelps he snapped, “Do
something, you idiots! I can’t hold them forever.”
Shang! Elmo’s sword cleared its scabbard. The
Lieutenant’s did the same. I was carrying nothing but a long
dagger. I whipped it out and joined the rush. The castle creatures
stood frozen, surprise in their ophidian eyes. The Lieutenant
reached them first, stopped, wound up, took a mighty two-handed
swing.
He lugs a hanger that is damned near an executioner’s
sword. A blow like that would have severed the necks of three men.
It did not remove the head of his victim, though it did bite deep.
Blood sprayed the three of us.
Elmo went with a thrust, as did I. His sword drove a foot into
his victim. My dagger felt like it had hit soft wood. It sank but
three inches into my victim. Probably not deeply enough to reach
anything vital.
I yanked my blade free, poked around in my medical knowledge for
a better killing point. Elmo kicked his victim in the chest to get
his weapon free.
The Lieutenant had the best weapon and approach. He hacked
another neck while we diddled around.
Then One-Eye lost it. The eyes of the castle creatures came
alive. Pure fiery venom burned there. I feared the two not yet
harmed would swarm all over us. But the Lieutenant threw a wild
stroke and they retreated. The one I had wounded staggered after
them. He fell before he reached the gate. He kept crawling. The
gate closed in his face.
“So,” the Lieutenant said. “There’s a
few lads we don’t have to face later. My commendation,
One-Eye.” He spoke calmly enough, but his voice was up in the
squeak range. His hands shook. It had been close. We would not have
survived had One-Eye not come along. “I think I’ve seen
enough for today. Let’s hike.”
Ninety percent of me wanted to run as fast as I could. Ten
percent stuck to business. “Let’s drag one of these
bastards along,” it croaked out of a mouth dry with fear.
“What the hell for?” Elmo demanded.
“So I can
carve it up and see what it is.”
“Yeah.” The
Lieutenant squatted and grabbed a body under the arms. It struggled
feebly. Shuddering, I took hold of booted feet and hoisted. The
creature folded in the middle.
“Hell with that,” the Lieutenant said. He dropped
his end, joined me. “You pull that leg. I’ll pull this
one.”
We pulled. The body slid sideways. We started bickering about
who should do what.
“You guys want to stop crapping around?” One-Eye
snarled. He stabbed a wrinkled black finger. I looked back.
Creatures had appeared on the battlements. I felt an increase in
the dread the castle inspired.
“Something’s happening,” I said, and headed
downhill, never letting go of the body. The Lieutenant came along.
Our burden took a beating going through the rock and brush.
Wham! Something hit the slope like the stamp of a giant’s
foot. I felt like a roach fleeing a man who hated cockroaches and
had his stomping boots on. There was another stamp, more
earth-shaking.
“Oh, shit,” Elmo said. He came past me, arms and
legs pumping. One-Eye was right behind him, flying low, gaining
ground. Neither offered to help.
A third thump, and a fourth, about equally spaced in time, each
closer than the last. The last sent chunks of stone and dead brush
arcing overhead.
Fifty yards down-slope One-Eye halted, whirled, did one of his
magic things. A chunk of pale blue fire exploded in his upraised
hands, went roaring up the hill, moaning past me less than a foot
away. The Lieutenant and I passed One-Eye. A fifth giant stomp
spattered our backs with shards of rock and brush.
One-Eye let out a mad howl and ran again. He yelled, “That
was my best shot. Better dump that clown and scatter.” He
pulled away, bounding like a hare fleeing hounds.
A scream filled the valley of the Port. A pair of dots came
hurtling over from the southern slope, almost too fast for the eye
to follow. They passed over with a hollow, deep roar, and boomed
like a god’s drum behind us. I was not sure, but it seemed
the dots were connected.
Another pair appeared, revolving about a common center. I got a
better look. Yes, they were connected. They roared. They boomed. I
glanced back. The face of the black castle had vanished behind a
wall of color like paint thrown against, then running down, a pane
of glass to which it would not adhere.
“Taken are on the job,” the Lieutenant panted. His
eyes were wild, but he clung to his side of our burden.
The damned creature got hung up. Panicky, we hacked its clothing
free from a thorn bush. I kept looking up, expecting something to
come down and smash us all over the slope.
Another pair of balls arrived, spraying color. They did no
obvious harm, but kept the castle occupied. We freed our booty,
hurried on.
A different sort of dot pair came, dropping from high above. I
pointed. “Feather and Whisper.” The Taken plunged
toward the black castle, preceded by a high-pitched shriek. Fire
enveloped the castle wall. Obsidian seemed to melt and run like
candle wax, shifting the already grotesque decorations into forms
even more bizarre. The Taken pulled out, gained altitude, came
around for another pass. In the interim another pair of dots
screamed across the Port valley and painted the planes of the air.
It would have been a great show if I had not been so damned busy
getting away.
The slope resounded to the stamp of an invisible giant. A circle
fifteen feet across and five deep appeared above us. Sticks and
stones flew. It missed by only a dozen feet. The impact knocked us
down. A line of like imprints marched back up the slope.
Mighty though that blow was, it was less forceful than its
predecessors.
Feather and Whisper swooped again, and again the face of the
black castle melted, ran, shifted form. Then thunder racked the
air. Bam-bam! Both Taken vanished in clouds of smoke. They wobbled
out, fighting for control of their carpets. Both smouldered the way
Feather had the night we captured Shed. They fought for
altitude.
The castle turned its entire attention to them. The Lieutenant
and I made our escape.
Things changed after the Captain’s visit. The men became
more alert. Elmo’s influence waxed while mine waned. A less
wishy-washy, more inflexible tone characterized the Company
deputation. Every man became ready to move at an instant’s
notice.
Communications improved dramatically while time available for
sleep declined painfully. None of us were ever out of touch more
than two hours. And Elmo found excuses to get everyone but himself
out of Duretile, into places where the Taken would have trouble
finding them. Asa became my ward out on the black castle slope.
Tension mounted. I felt like one of a flock of chickens poised
to scatter the moment a fox landed among us. I tried to bleed off
my shakiness by updating the Annals. I had let them slide sadly,
seldom having done more than keep notes.
When the tension became too much for me, I walked uphill to
stare at the black castle.
It was an intentional risk-taking, like that of a child who
crawls out a tree branch overhanging a deadly fall. The closer I
approached the castle, the more narrow my concentration. At two
hundred yards all other cares vanished. I felt the dread of that
place down to my ankle bones and the shallows of my soul. At two
hundred yards I felt what it meant to have the shadow of the
Dominator overhanging the world. I felt what the Lady felt when she
considered her husband’s potential resurrection. Every
emotion became edged with a hint of despair. In a way, the black
castle was more than a gateway through which the
world’s great old evil might reappear. It was a
concretization of metaphorical concepts, and a living symbol. It
did things a great cathedral does. Like a cathedral, it was far more
than an edifice.
I could stare at its obsidian walls and grotesque decoration,
recall Shed’s stories, and never avoid dipping into the
cesspool of my own soul, never avoid searching myself for the
essential decency shelved through most of my adult life. That
castle was, if you like, a moral landmark. If you had a brain. If
you had any sensitivity at all.
There were times when One-Eye, Goblin, Elmo or another of the
men accompanied me. Not one of them went away untouched. They could
stand there with me, talking trivialities about its construction
or, weightily, about its significance in the Company’s
future, and all the while something would be happening inside.
I do not believe in evil absolute. I have recounted that
philosophy in specific elsewhere in the Annals, and it affects my
every observation throughout my tenure as Annalist. I believe in
our side and theirs, with the good and evil decided after the fact,
by those who survive. Among men you seldom find the good with one
standard and the shadow with another. In our war with the Rebel,
eight and nine years ago, we served the side perceived as the
shadow. Yet we saw far more wickedness practiced by the adherents
of the White Rose than by those of the Lady. The villains of the
piece were at least straightforward.
The world knows where it stands with the Lady. It is the Rebel
whose ideals and morals conflict with fact, becoming as changeable
as the weather and as flexible as a snake.
But I digress. The black castle has that effect. Makes you amble
off into all the byways and cul-de-sacs and false trails you have
laid down during your life. It makes you reassess. Makes you want
to take a stand somewhere, even if on the black side. Leaves you
impatient with your own malleable morality.
I suspect that is why Juniper decided to pretend the place did
not exist. It is an absolute demanding absolutes in a world with a
preference for relatives.
Darling was in my thoughts often while I stood below those
black, glossy walls, for she was the castle’s antipode when I
was up there. The white pole, and absolute in opposition to what
the black castle symbolized. I had not been much in her presence
since realizing what she was, but I could recall being morally
unnerved by her, too. I wondered how she would affect me now, after
having had years to grow.
From what Shed said, she did not reek the way the castle did.
His main interest in her had been hustling her upstairs. And Raven
had not been driven into puritanical channels. If anything, he had
slipped farther into the darkness—though for the highest of
motives.
Possibly there was a message there. An observation upon means to
ends. Here was Raven who had acted with the pragmatic amorality of
a prince of Hell, all so he could save the child who represented
the best hope of the world against the Lady and the Dominator.
Oh, ’twould be marvelous if the world and its moral
questions were like some game board, with plain black players and
white, and fixed rules, and nary a shade of grey.
Even Asa and Shed could be made to feel the aura of the castle
if you took them up during the daytime and made them stand there
looking at those fell walls.
Shed especially.
Shed had achieved a position where he could afford conscience
and uncertainty. I mean, he had none of the financial troubles that
had plagued him earlier, and no prospect of digging himself a hole
with us watching him, so he could reflect upon his place in things
and become disgusted with himself. More than once I took him up and
watched as that deep spark of hidden decency flared, twisted him
upon a rack of inner torment.
I do not know how Elmo did it. Maybe he went without sleep for a
few weeks. But when the Company came down out of the Wolanders, he
had an occupation plan prepared. It was crude, to be sure, but
better than any of us expected.
I was in the Buskin, at Shed’s Iron Lily, when the first
rumors raged down the waterfront and stirred one of the most
massive states of confusion I’ve ever seen. Shed’s
wood-seller neighbor swept into the Lily, announced,
“There’s an army coming down out of the pass!
Foreigners! Thousands of them! They
say . . . ”
During the following hour a dozen patrons brought the news. Each
time the army was larger and its purpose more obscure. Nobody knew
what the Company wanted. Various witnesses assigned motives
according to their own fears. Few came anywhere near the mark.
Though the men were weary after so long a march, they spread
through the city quickly, the larger units guided by Elmo’s
men. Candy brought a reinforced company into the Buskin. The worst
slums are always the first site of rebellion, we’ve found.
There were few violent confrontations. Juniper’s citizens
were taken by surprise and had no idea what to fight about anyway.
Most just turned out to watch.
I got myself back up to my squad. This was the time the Taken
would do their deed. If they planned anything.
Nothing happened. As I might have guessed, knowing that men from
our forerunner party were guiding the new arrivals. Indeed, nobody
got in touch with me, up there, for another two days. By then the
city was pacified. Every key point was in our hands. Every state
building, every arsenal, every strong point, even the
Custodians’ headquarters in the Enclosure. And life went on
as usual. What little trouble there was came when Rebel refugees
tried to start an uprising, accurately accusing the Duke of having
brought the Lady to Juniper.
The people of Juniper didn’t much care.
There were problems in the Buskin, though. Elmo wanted to
straighten the slum out. Some of the slum dwellers didn’t
want to be straightened. He used Candy’s company forcefully,
cracking the organizations of the crime bosses. I did not see the
necessity, but wiser heads feared the gangs could become the focus
of future resistance. Anything with that potential had to be
squashed immediately. I think there was a hope the move would win
popular favor, too.
Elmo brought the Lieutenant to my hillside shack the third day
after the Company’s arrival. “How goes it?” I
asked. The Lieutenant had aged terribly since I had seen him last.
The passage westward had been grim.
“City’s secure,” he said. “Stinking
dump, isn’t it?”
“Better believe. It’s all snake’s belly.
What’s up?”
Elmo said, “He needs a look at the target.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
The Lieutenant said, “The Limper says we’re going to
take this place. I don’t know how soon. Captain wants me to
look it over.”
“Fun times tomorrow,” I muttered. “Ain’t
going to grab it on the sneak.” I donned my coat. It was
chilly up on the slopes. Elmo and One-Eye tagged along when I took
the Lieutenant up. He eyeballed the castle, deep in thought.
Finally, he said, “I don’t like it. Not even a little
bit.” He felt the cold dread of the place.
“I got a man who’s been inside,” I said.
“But don’t let the Taken know. He’s supposed to
be dead.”
“What can he tell me?”
“Not much. He’s only been there at night, in a court
behind the gate.”
“Uhm. The Taken have a girl up at Duretile, too. I talked
to her. She couldn’t tell me nothing. Only in there once, and
was too scared to look around.”
“She’s still alive?”
“Yeah. That’s the one you caught? Yeah. She’s
alive. Lady’s orders, apparently. Nasty little witch.
Let’s hike around it.”
We got onto the far slope, where the going was rough, to the
accompaniment of constant crabbing by One-Eye. The Lieutenant
stated the obvious. “No getting at it from here. Not without
help from the Taken.”
“Going to take a big lot of help to get at it from any
direction.”
He looked me a question.
I told him about Feather’s troubles the night we took Shed
and his barmaid.
“Anything since?”
“Nope. Not before, either. My man who’s been inside
never saw anything extraordinary, either. But, dammit, the thing
connects with the Barrowland. It’s got the Dominator behind
it. You know it’s not going to be a pushover. They know
there’s trouble out here.”
One-Eye made a squeaking sound. “What?” the
Lieutenant snapped.
One-Eye pointed. We all looked up the wall, which loomed a good
sixty feet above us. I did not see anything. Neither did the
Lieutenant. “What?” he asked again.
“Something was watching us. Nasty-looking
critter.”
“I saw it too,” Elmo volunteered. “Long,
skinny, yellowish guy with eyes like a snake.”
I considered the wall. “How could you tell from
here?”
Elmo shivered and shrugged. “I could. And I didn’t
like it. Looked like he wanted to bite me.” We dragged on
through brush and over boulders, keeping one eye on the castle, the
other on the down slope. Elmo muttered, “Hungry eyes.
That’s what they were.”
We reached the ridgeline west of the castle. The Lieutenant
paused. “How close can you get?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t had the balls to find
out.”
The Lieutenant moved here, there, as if sighting on something.
“Let’s bring up some prisoners and find out.”
I sucked spittle between my teeth, then said, “You
won’t get the locals anywhere near the place.”
“Think not? How about in exchange for a pardon?
Candy’s rounded up half the villains in the Buskin. Got a
regular anti-crime crusade going. He gets three complaints about
somebody, he nabs them.”
“Sounds a little simple,” I said. We were moving
around for a look at the castle gate. By simple I meant simplistic,
not easy.
The Lieutenant chuckled. Months of hardship had not sapped his
bizarre sense of humor. “Simple minds respond to simple
answers. A few months of Candy’s reforms and the Duke will be
a hero.”
I understood the reasoning. Juniper was a lawless city, ruled by
regional strongmen. There were hordes of Sheds who lived in terror,
continuously victimized. Anyone who lessened the terror would win
their affection. Adequately developed, that affection would survive
later excesses.
I wondered, though, if the support of weaklings was worth much.
Or if, should we successfully infect them with courage, we might
not be creating trouble for ourselves later. Take away daily
domestic oppression and they might imagine oppression on our
part.
I have seen it before. Little people have to hate, have to blame
someone for their own inadequacies.
But that was not the problem of the moment. The moment demanded
immediate, vigorous, violent attention. The castle gate popped open
as we came in line. A half-dozen wild beings in black rushed us. A
fog of lethargy settled upon me, and I found fear fading the moment
it sparked into existence. By the time they were halfway to us, all
I wanted was to lie down.
Pain filled my limbs. My head ached. Cramps knotted my stomach.
The lethargy vanished.
One-Eye was doing strange things, dancing, yelping like a wolf
pup, throwing his hands around like wounded birds. His big, weird
hat flew off and tumbled with the breeze, downhill, till it became
tangled in the brush. Between yelps he snapped, “Do
something, you idiots! I can’t hold them forever.”
Shang! Elmo’s sword cleared its scabbard. The
Lieutenant’s did the same. I was carrying nothing but a long
dagger. I whipped it out and joined the rush. The castle creatures
stood frozen, surprise in their ophidian eyes. The Lieutenant
reached them first, stopped, wound up, took a mighty two-handed
swing.
He lugs a hanger that is damned near an executioner’s
sword. A blow like that would have severed the necks of three men.
It did not remove the head of his victim, though it did bite deep.
Blood sprayed the three of us.
Elmo went with a thrust, as did I. His sword drove a foot into
his victim. My dagger felt like it had hit soft wood. It sank but
three inches into my victim. Probably not deeply enough to reach
anything vital.
I yanked my blade free, poked around in my medical knowledge for
a better killing point. Elmo kicked his victim in the chest to get
his weapon free.
The Lieutenant had the best weapon and approach. He hacked
another neck while we diddled around.
Then One-Eye lost it. The eyes of the castle creatures came
alive. Pure fiery venom burned there. I feared the two not yet
harmed would swarm all over us. But the Lieutenant threw a wild
stroke and they retreated. The one I had wounded staggered after
them. He fell before he reached the gate. He kept crawling. The
gate closed in his face.
“So,” the Lieutenant said. “There’s a
few lads we don’t have to face later. My commendation,
One-Eye.” He spoke calmly enough, but his voice was up in the
squeak range. His hands shook. It had been close. We would not have
survived had One-Eye not come along. “I think I’ve seen
enough for today. Let’s hike.”
Ninety percent of me wanted to run as fast as I could. Ten
percent stuck to business. “Let’s drag one of these
bastards along,” it croaked out of a mouth dry with fear.
“What the hell for?” Elmo demanded.
“So I can
carve it up and see what it is.”
“Yeah.” The
Lieutenant squatted and grabbed a body under the arms. It struggled
feebly. Shuddering, I took hold of booted feet and hoisted. The
creature folded in the middle.
“Hell with that,” the Lieutenant said. He dropped
his end, joined me. “You pull that leg. I’ll pull this
one.”
We pulled. The body slid sideways. We started bickering about
who should do what.
“You guys want to stop crapping around?” One-Eye
snarled. He stabbed a wrinkled black finger. I looked back.
Creatures had appeared on the battlements. I felt an increase in
the dread the castle inspired.
“Something’s happening,” I said, and headed
downhill, never letting go of the body. The Lieutenant came along.
Our burden took a beating going through the rock and brush.
Wham! Something hit the slope like the stamp of a giant’s
foot. I felt like a roach fleeing a man who hated cockroaches and
had his stomping boots on. There was another stamp, more
earth-shaking.
“Oh, shit,” Elmo said. He came past me, arms and
legs pumping. One-Eye was right behind him, flying low, gaining
ground. Neither offered to help.
A third thump, and a fourth, about equally spaced in time, each
closer than the last. The last sent chunks of stone and dead brush
arcing overhead.
Fifty yards down-slope One-Eye halted, whirled, did one of his
magic things. A chunk of pale blue fire exploded in his upraised
hands, went roaring up the hill, moaning past me less than a foot
away. The Lieutenant and I passed One-Eye. A fifth giant stomp
spattered our backs with shards of rock and brush.
One-Eye let out a mad howl and ran again. He yelled, “That
was my best shot. Better dump that clown and scatter.” He
pulled away, bounding like a hare fleeing hounds.
A scream filled the valley of the Port. A pair of dots came
hurtling over from the southern slope, almost too fast for the eye
to follow. They passed over with a hollow, deep roar, and boomed
like a god’s drum behind us. I was not sure, but it seemed
the dots were connected.
Another pair appeared, revolving about a common center. I got a
better look. Yes, they were connected. They roared. They boomed. I
glanced back. The face of the black castle had vanished behind a
wall of color like paint thrown against, then running down, a pane
of glass to which it would not adhere.
“Taken are on the job,” the Lieutenant panted. His
eyes were wild, but he clung to his side of our burden.
The damned creature got hung up. Panicky, we hacked its clothing
free from a thorn bush. I kept looking up, expecting something to
come down and smash us all over the slope.
Another pair of balls arrived, spraying color. They did no
obvious harm, but kept the castle occupied. We freed our booty,
hurried on.
A different sort of dot pair came, dropping from high above. I
pointed. “Feather and Whisper.” The Taken plunged
toward the black castle, preceded by a high-pitched shriek. Fire
enveloped the castle wall. Obsidian seemed to melt and run like
candle wax, shifting the already grotesque decorations into forms
even more bizarre. The Taken pulled out, gained altitude, came
around for another pass. In the interim another pair of dots
screamed across the Port valley and painted the planes of the air.
It would have been a great show if I had not been so damned busy
getting away.
The slope resounded to the stamp of an invisible giant. A circle
fifteen feet across and five deep appeared above us. Sticks and
stones flew. It missed by only a dozen feet. The impact knocked us
down. A line of like imprints marched back up the slope.
Mighty though that blow was, it was less forceful than its
predecessors.
Feather and Whisper swooped again, and again the face of the
black castle melted, ran, shifted form. Then thunder racked the
air. Bam-bam! Both Taken vanished in clouds of smoke. They wobbled
out, fighting for control of their carpets. Both smouldered the way
Feather had the night we captured Shed. They fought for
altitude.
The castle turned its entire attention to them. The Lieutenant
and I made our escape.