The Lair of Bones (50 page)

As the three approached Carris, the sun slowly descended beyond the rim of the world, hidden behind towers of billowing smoke. The wind was ominously still, and the heat that rose from the soil leached the stink from the blasted lands and left it hovering in a fetid haze. To the west the foothills were all gray with decay, and to the east Lake Donnestgree lay flat and dull. Not a single wave rippled across its surface. Gone were the sea-gulls that had winged above its shore a week past.

Ahead, Carris was a city of ruins. The plaster had all cracked from the castle walls, so that only a few bright strips still gleamed above the gray stone. The walls had buckled and bulged. Gone were the doves and pigeons that had wheeled above Castle Carris like confetti.

It was a far fairer sight that greeted my father's eyes, Borenson thought.

Why Carris? Borenson wondered. Why would the reavers attack it again? There is nothing here worth winning, nothing worth defending. Yet we keep on fighting, like a pair of crabs squabbling over a worthless rock.

Unless there is something here that the reavers value? he wondered.

But what it might be, he could not guess. The land was a broken waste.

Still the armies had gathered. A million reavers were marching from the south, while men and women paced along the cracked castle walls, armor gleaming dully like the backs of beetles in the dying light.

Borenson caught wind of a noxious odor, and noted that to his right were the trenches that the reavers had made to channel water from the lake. The reavers had thrown in some huge yellow stones.

At the time no one had comprehended what the reavers were doing. It wasn't until Averan explained that reavers could only drink water rich in sulfur that anyone had understood: the monsters were creating drinking water.

But now the ditches were filled with lumps of white lye soap, brown human turds, and an oily scum that colored the water's surface. Chondler's men had poisoned it so badly that even a whiff of the putrid mix made Borenson's eyes burn.

“Even if the reavers manage to win Carris,” Myrrima said, “I don't think that they'll be enjoying their stay.”

The sun dipped behind the peaks, and suddenly the black plains plunged into near darkness. Borenson heard a cry rise up from the city, and he glanced back to the south.

A rim of fire could be seen on the mountaintops, twenty miles behind, and columns of smoke rose straight up like the black boles of vast trees. High in the atmosphere, the smoke spread like a mushroom cap, or like the limbs of an oak. Already, clouds of smoke arched overhead.

But it was not the encroaching darkness that caused the cries of alarm. There, in the distance, behind the rim of fire, reavers marched in a broad band, and raced down the mountainside like a black cataract. The distant hissing of their breathing and the pounding of their feet made it sound as if a dam had broken, and trees and boulders tumbled in the glut of the flood.

The city of Carris squatted on an isle out in Lake Donnestgree. The city was more than two miles long from north to south, and a little over a mile wide at its widest point. One could only reach it by boat or by walking up a narrow road that led over a long causeway.

Here on the causeway a week ago, towers and gates had guarded the city. But the reavers had pushed the towers over and thrown down the city gates, and Marshal Chondler, despite all his good intentions, had not had time to replace them.

Instead, at the head of the causeway, his people had dragged wooden rubble from all around—thatch from cottage roofs, timbers, fence posts, broken wagons and chairs, a girl's straw doll—and heaped them all into piles beside the road. This would become a firewall to protect the city from the reaver's advance, but even a firewall would not hold for more than an hour or two.

Amid this heap of trash, the heads of several huge reavers lay in the rubble, their mouths thrown wide. Borenson recognized the enormous fell mage that had led the first attack on the city, along with the heads of other monsters. Their mouths were filled with philia cut from the bung-holes of dead reavers, so that the scent of moldy garlic wafted over the fields.

Straw lay strewn over the fields at the mouth of the causeway, a sure sign that Chondler's men had lain down
caltrops
—wicked bits of sharp metal bolted together in order to puncture the hooves of charging horses.

But would a caltrop harm a reaver? Borenson wondered. He peered hard until he saw a twisted piece of metal rising up through some straw, a blade at least five times larger than a normal caltrop.

Where would he have gotten so much metal? Borenson wondered, and then recalled the tens of thousands of knight gigs and blades that the reavers had lost here a week ago.

Borenson rode toward the city. A few dull rays of dying sun still man-aged to penetrate the smoke. All along the city wall, people gazed out at the newcomers—men in bright helms; old women with jaws set in determination, their faces framed by graying hair; young boys pale with fear—so many wan faces like scattered leaves cast upon a field of soot.

The castle gates were still down, along with some of the towers, but the rubble had been shifted, forming barricades of stone that bristled with reaver blades all along the causeway. Such barricades were not meant to stop reavers, only to slow them so that archers and artillerymen could have time to take aim.

Wooden platforms had been set along the wallwalks, and rafts floated in the lake, and on these and on the towers sat an array of ballistas and catapults that perhaps had not been matched in all of Rofehavan's history. In the lee of each artillery piece crouched a pair of archers from Heredon with bows of spring steel. Farther back, those who had not steel bows were armed with Indhopal's horn bows. And archers with longbows perched along the castle walls.

“Look at that!” Myrrima said. “Chondler must have gathered artillery from every castle within a hundred miles.”

“Two hundred,” Sarka Kaul said, “though little good it will do him.”

Borenson's heart was full of foreboding.

Why did Gabom tell his people to gather here? Borenson wondered. The city had not fared well in the first attack. Only a miracle had saved it. Only the Earth King, summoning a world worm in its defense, had man-aged to free the city. The mound of dirt around the worm's hole still rose up like a crater, several hundred yards to the north.

Perhaps, Borenson wondered, Gaborn hopes for another miracle.

He reached the city “gate,” an open space between two tiers of rubble, and found Marshal Chondler there, atop one pile, gazing off toward the south. At his feet lay a pile of stinking philia, and Borenson could see more loathsome pieces of flesh hanging like talismans of doom from the castle walls.

“Hail, Sir Borenson, Lady Myrrima, and… your friend?” Chondler said mirthlessly. “Any news from the south?” His voice was oddly high, and he moved swiftly. Borenson could tell that he had taken several endowments of metabolism, and that he could only slow his speech with great concentration.

“The reavers are coming,” Borenson said. “But that you can see for yourself.”

“No sight of the Earth King?” Chondler's voice was husky, as if he sought to mask his fear.

“None,” Borenson said, “or of any other comfort.”

“You have your endowments intact,” Chondler said. He eyed Borenson in particular. “I had your facilitator vector more to you yesterday, hoping that you would return.”

“I got them,” Borenson said, “and none too soon. Are you telling me that my Dedicates are still here, in Carris?” The news unsettled him. A million reavers were marching on the city, and his Dedicates would be helpless before them.

“Aye,” Chondler said. “We'd hoped to get them out, but we'd sent our boats downstream to ferry out the sick, the women, and the children. There have been none to spare for Dedicates. So we will guard Carris, as is the duty of Runelords, and if the reavers take our Dedicates, they will have to do so over our dead bodies.”

“This place is a death trap, you know,” Borenson said.

Chondler challenged, “Name a better castle to defend in all of Mystarria.”

Borenson couldn't. “Do you have any lances? Perhaps we could make one last charge on the open field.”

“I wish we had a few. But our lances are gone. We'll rely now upon arrows and warhammers and whatever other weapons we have at hand.”

“I found Sir Pitts riding south,” Borenson said. “He told me that you were full of more tricks than a trained bear. I do hope you have more than a firewall and ballistas to show for your trouble.”

“We have ten thousand ballista bolts, besides balls for the catapults,” Chondler said. “We can shoot the reavers from behind the safety of the firewall. Once those fail, we'll rely upon our archers. They'll fire into the reavers from the castle walls as our men engage them at the gate. We have three million arrows and five hundred good force archers who can hit what they're aiming at.”

“Three million arrows may not be nearly enough,” Borenson said. “Those horn bows might pierce reaver hide, but I've never heard of a longbow that could do it.”

“Nevertheless, we will try,” Chondler said. “I've ordered the men to refrain from shooting until the enemy engages at ten yards.”

Borenson bit his lip, wondering if it could work.

“I've had the facilitators here working night and day,” Chondler said. “They reforged all of the forcibles that we could lay hands on. I've got three dozen men to act as champions, each with twenty endowments of metabolism. Working together, they should be able to hold the gate for a good long time. As it so happens, we still need another champion. How about it?” Chondler asked with a wicked smile. “Want to die young?”

Borenson glanced sidelong at Myrrima. Had someone asked him the same question a week ago, he would not have hesitated. But now he was not living just for himself. Taking such endowments meant that even if he lived through the battle, he would never be a real husband to Myrrima. He would die a solitary creature, isolated from all mankind by his speed.

Myrrima seemed to read his mind. She glanced back at the approaching horde, spilling down from the mountains. The darkness had deepened, and all that Borenson could see was a line of fire raging up there. But suddenly the flames took a whole pine, lighting it up like a vast torch, and in its light he saw the dreaded foe, red light reflecting from their dull backs. At the rate that they ran, they'd be here within the hour.

“It will take more than a few champions to save you,” Sarka Kaul said, speaking up at last.

“We have hopes of reinforcements, sir,” Chondler said. “Lowicker's daughter is leading a good army south, and at last word was less than a dozen miles away.”

“And Raj Ahten has an army hidden in the hills to the east,” Sarka Kaul said. “But neither of them wish you well. They come like crows, hoping
only to take the spoils once you have fallen. They will enter the fray only when you are dead.”

“And how could you possibly know this?” Chondler asked with worry on his brow.

Sarka Kaul drew back his black hood, revealing skin whiter than bone. “Because I have been privy to their councils,” he said. “Grant me your twenty endowments of metabolism so that I can fight, and I think I can show you how to win this battle.”

Chondler eyed the Inkarran suspiciously, glanced toward Sir Borenson.

Borenson gave him the nod.

“Very well,” Chondler said. “We could use a man who knows how to fight in the dark.”

As Borenson, Myrrima, and Sarka Kaul entered Carris, riding along the causeway, the evening sun dipped below the teeth of the world and plunged the city into blackest night.

34

Signs and wonders follow those of whom the Powers approve.

—
from A
Child's Book of Wizardry

Erin Connal rode south over the muddy fields of Beldinook that morning, heading to war in the retinue of King Anders. On swift force horses followed nearly six thousand knights.