‘You two don’t smell too good,’ Yarblek noted.
‘It has to do with the route we took,’ Liselle replied, wrinkling her nose.
‘You’re looking well,’ Javelin said conversationally to his niece, ‘all things considered.’
‘Thank you, uncle,’ she replied. Then she turned to Garion. ‘Are the rumors going about the city true, your Majesty?’ she asked. ‘Has your son been abducted?’
Garion nodded grimly. ‘It happened just after we took Jarviksholm. That’s why we’re here.’
‘But Prince Geran doesn’t seem to be in Rheon,’ she told him.
‘Are you sure?’ Ce’Nedra demanded.
‘I think so, your Majesty. The cultists inside the city are baffled. They seem to have no idea who took your son.’
‘Ulfgar may be keeping it a secret,’ Javelin said. ‘Only a small group may know.’
‘Perhaps, but it doesn’t look that way. I wasn’t able to get close enough to him to make sure, but he has the look of a man whose plans have gone all awry. I don’t think he expected this attack on Rheon. His fortifications are not nearly as complete as they might appear from the outside. The north wall in particular is rather flimsy. His reinforcement of the walls seems a desperation move. He was not expecting a siege. If he’d been behind the abduction, he would have been prepared for the attack—unless he thought you could never trace it to him.’
‘This is most excellent news, my Lady,’ Mandorallen praised her. ‘Since we know of the weakness of the north fortifications, we can concentrate our efforts there. If Goodman Durnik’s plan proves workable, a weakening of the foundations of the north wall should bring it down most speedily.’
‘What can you tell us about Ulfgar?’ Barak asked the girl.
‘I only saw him briefly at a distance. He spends most of his time inside his house, and only his closest cohorts are allowed near him. He made a speech, though, just before he sent his forces to attack you. He speaks very passionately and he had the crowd absolutely under his control. I can tell you one thing about him, though. He’s not an Alorn.’
‘He’s not?’ Barak looked dumbfounded.
‘His face doesn’t give away his nationality, but his speech is not that of an Alorn.’
‘Why would the cult accept an outsider as their leader?’ Garion demanded.
‘They aren’t aware of the fact that he is an outsider. He mispronounces a few words—just a couple, actually, and only a trained ear would catch them. If I’d been able to get closer to him, I might have been able to steer him toward those words that would have betrayed his origins. I’m sorry that I can’t be of more help.’
‘How strong is his grip on the cult?’ Javelin asked.
‘It’s absolute,’ she replied. ‘They’ll do anything he tells them to do. They look upon him as something very akin to a God.’
‘We’re going to have to take him alive,’ Garion said grimly. ‘I have to have some answers.’
‘That may be extremely difficult, your Majesty,’ she said gravely. ‘It’s widely believed in Rheon that he’s a sorcerer. I didn’t actually see any evidence of it myself, but I talked with a number of people who have, or at least who claimed they have done so.’
‘You have performed a great service for us, Margravine,’ Queen Porenn said gratefully. ‘It shall not be forgotten.’
‘Thank you, your Majesty,’ Liselle replied simply, with a formal little curtsy. Then she turned back to Garion. ‘What information I was able to glean says quite strongly that the cult forces within the walls are not nearly so formidable as we were led to believe. Their numbers are impressive, but they include a great many young boys and old men. They appear to be counting rather desperately on a force that’s marching toward the city under the command of a hidden cult-member.’
‘Haldar,’ Barak said.
She nodded.
‘And that brings us right back to the absolute necessity of getting inside those walls,’ Javelin told them. He looked at Durnik. ‘How long do you estimate that it’s going to take for the ground under the north wall to soften enough to topple the structure?’
Durnik sat back, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling of the tent. ‘We want to take them by surprise,’ he said, ‘so I don’t think we want the water to come gushing out—not at first, anyway. A gradual seepage would be far less noticeable. It’s going to take a while to saturate the ground.’
‘And we’re going to have to be very careful,’ Garion added. ‘If this Ulfgar really is a sorcerer, he’ll hear us if we make too much noise.’
‘There’ll be plenty of noise when the wall comes down,’ Barak said. ‘Why don’t you just blow it apart the way you did the back wall of Jarviksholm?’
Garion shook his head. ‘There are a couple of moments after you unleash your will when you’re absolutely vulnerable to attack by anybody who has the same kind of talent. I’d sort of like to be alive and sane when I find my son.’
‘How long will it take to soak the ground under the wall?’ Javelin asked.
Durnik scratched at his cheek. ‘Tonight,’ he replied, ‘and all day tomorrow. By midnight tomorrow, the wall ought to be sufficiently undermined. Then, just before we attack, Garion and I can speed up the flow of water and wash out most of the dirt. It’s going to be very wet and soft already, and a good stream of water ought to cut it right out from under the wall. If we lob stones at it from the far side and get a few dozen grappling hooks into it, we should be able to pull it down in short order.’
‘You might want to pick up the pace with your engines,’ Yarblek said to Mandorallen. ‘Give them time to get used to the idea of rocks coming out of the sky. That way they won’t pay any attention when you start pounding on their walls tomorrow night.’
‘Midnight tomorrow, then?’ Barak said.
‘Right,’ Garion said firmly.
Javelin looked at his niece. ‘Do you have the layout of the north quarter of the city fairly well in mind?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘Make a sketch for us. We’ll need to know where to set up our defenses once we get inside.’
‘Right after I bathe, uncle.’
‘We need that sketch, Liselle.’
‘Not nearly as badly as I need a bath.’
‘You too, Kheldar,’ Queen Porenn said firmly.
Silk gave Liselle a speculative look.
‘Never mind, Kheldar,’ she said. ‘I can wash my own back, thank you.’
‘Let’s go find some water, Durnik,’ Garion said, getting to his feet. ‘Underground, I mean.’
‘Right,’ the smith replied.
There was no moon, of course. The clouds that had hovered over the area for the past week and more obscured the sky. The night air was chill as Garion and Durnik moved carefully across the shallow valley toward the besieged city.
‘Cold night,’ Durnik murmured as they walked through the rank gorse.
‘Umm,’ Garion agreed. ‘How deep do you think the water might be lying?’
‘Not too deep,’ Durnik replied. ‘I asked Liselle how deep the wells are in Rheon. She said that they were all fairly shallow. I think we’ll hit water at about twenty-five feet.’
‘What gave you this idea, anyway?’
Durnik chuckled softly in the darkness. ‘When I was much younger, I worked for a farmer who gave himself great airs. He thought it might impress his neighbors if he had a well right inside his house. We worked at it all one winter and finally tapped into an artesian flow. Three days later, his house collapsed. He was very upset about it.’
‘I can imagine.’
Durnik looked up at the looming walls. ‘I don’t know that we need to get any closer,’ he said. ‘It might be hard to concentrate if they see us and start shooting arrows at us. Let’s work around to the north side.’
‘Right.’
They moved even more carefully now, trying to avoid making any sound in the rustling gorse.
‘This should do it,’ Dur
nik whispered. ‘Let’s see what’s down there.’
Garion let his thoughts sink quietly down through the hard-packed earth under the north wall of the city. The first few feet were difficult, since he kept encountering moles and earthworms. An angry chittering told him that he had briefly disturbed a badger. Then he hit a layer of rock and probed his thought along its flat surface, looking for fissures.
‘Just to your left,’ Durnik murmured. ‘Isn’t that a crack?’
Garion found it and wormed his way downward. The fissure seemed to grow damper and damper the deeper he went. ‘It’s wet down there,’ he whispered, ‘but the crack’s so narrow that the water’s barely seeping up.’
‘Let’s widen the crack—but not too much. Just enough to let a trickle come up.’
Garion bent his will and felt Durnik’s will join with his. Together they shouldered the crack in the rock a bit wider. The water lying beneath the rock layer gushed upward. Together they pulled back and felt the water begin to erode the hard-packed dirt under the wall, seeping and spreading in the darkness beneath the surface.
‘Let’s move on,’ Durnik whispered. ‘We ought to open up six or eight places under the wall in order to soak the ground thoroughly. Then tomorrow night we can push the cracks wide open.’
‘Won’t that wash out this whole hillside?’ Garion asked, also whispering.
‘Probably.’
‘That’s going to make it a little hard for our troops when they rush this place.’
‘There’s not much question about the fact that they’re going to get their feet wet,’ Durnik said, ‘but that’s better than trying to scale a wall with somebody pouring boiling oil on your head, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Much, much better,’ Garion agreed.
They moved on through the chill night. Then something brushed Garion’s cheek. At first he ignored it, but it came again—soft and cold and damp. His heart sank. ‘Durnik,’ he whispered, ‘it’s starting to snow.’
‘I thought that’s what it was. I think this is all going to turn very unpleasant on us.’
The snow continued to fall through the remainder of the night and on into the next morning. Though there were occasional flurries that swirled around the bleak fortress, the snowfall for the most part was intermittent. It was a wet, sodden kind of snow that turned to slush almost as soon as it touched the ground.
Shortly before noon, Garion and Lelldorin donned heavy wool cloaks and stout boots and went out of the snow-clogged encampment toward the north wall of Rheon. When they were perhaps two hundred paces from the base of the hill upon which the city rested, they sauntered along with a great show of casualness, trying to look like nothing more dangerous than a pair of soldiers on patrol. As Garion looked at the fortress city, he saw the red and black bear-flag once more, and once again that banner raised an irrational rage in him. ‘Are you sure that you’ll be able to recognize your arrows in the dark?’ he asked his friend. ‘There are a lot of arrows sticking in the ground out there, you know.’
Lelldorin drew his bow and shot an arrow in a long arc toward the city. The feathered shaft rose high in the air and then dropped to sink into the snow-covered turf about fifty paces from the beginning of the slope. ‘I made the arrows myself, Garion,’ he said, taking another shaft from the quiver at his back. ‘Believe me, I can recognize one of them as soon as my fingers touch it.’ He leaned back and bent his bow again. ‘Is the ground getting soft under the wall?’
Garion sent out his thought toward the slope of the hill and felt the chill, musty dampness of the soil lying under the snow. ‘Slowly,’ he replied, ‘it’s still pretty firm, though.’
‘It’s almost noon, Garion,’ Lelldorin said seriously, reaching for another arrow. ‘I know how thoroughly Goodman Durnik thinks things through, but is this really working?’
‘It takes a while,’ Garion told him. ‘You have to soak the lower layers of earth first. Then the water starts to rise and saturate the dirt directly under the wall itself. It takes time; but if the water started gushing out of rabbit holes, the people on top of the wall would know that something’s wrong.’
‘Think of how the rabbits would feel.’ Lelldorin grinned and shot another arrow.
They moved on as Lelldorin continued to mark the jumping-off line of the coming night’s assault with deceptive casualness.
‘All right,’ Garion said. ‘I know that you can recognize your own arrows, but how about the rest of us? One arrow feels just like another to me.’
‘It’s simple,’ the young bowman replied. ‘I just creep up, find my arrows and string them all together with twine. When you hit that string, you stop and wait for the wall to topple. Then you charge. We’ve been making night assaults on Mimbrate houses in Asturia for centuries this way.’
Throughout the remainder of that snowy day, Garion and Durnik periodically checked the level of moisture in the soil of the north slope of the steep knoll upon which the city of Rheon stood. ‘It’s getting very close to the saturation point, Garion,’ Durnik reported as dusk began to fall. ‘There are a few places on the lower slope where the water’s starting to seep through the snow.’
‘It’s a good thing it’s getting dark,’ Garion said, shifting the weight of his mail shirt nervously. Armor of any kind always made him uncomfortable, and the prospect of the upcoming assault on the city filled him with a peculiar emotion, part anxiety, and part anticipation.
Durnik, his oldest friend, looked at him with an understanding that pierced any possible concealment. He grinned a bit wryly. ‘What are a pair of sensible Sendarian farm boys doing fighting a war in the snow in eastern Drasnia?’ he asked.
‘Winning—I hope.’
‘We’ll win, Garion,’ Durnik assured him, laying an affectionate hand on the younger man’s shoulder. ‘Sendars always win—eventually.’
About an hour before midnight, Mandorallen began to move his siege engines, leaving only enough of them on the eastern and western sides to continue the intermittent barrage that was to mask their real purpose. As the hour wore on, Garion, Lelldorin, Durnik, and Silk crept forward at a half crouch toward the invisible line of arrows sticking up out of the snow.
‘Here’s one,’ Durnik whispered as his outstretched hands encountered the shaft of an arrow.
‘Here,’ Lelldorin murmured, ‘let me feel it.’ He joined the smith, the both of them on their knees in the slush. ‘Yes, it’s one of mine, Garion,’ he said very quietly. ‘They should be about ten paces apart.’
Silk moved quickly to where the two of them crouched over the arrow. ‘Show me how you recognize them,’ he breathed.
‘It’s in the fletching,’ Lelldorin replied. ‘I always use twisted gut to attach the feathers.’
Silk felt the feathered end of the arrow. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I can pick them out now.’
‘Are you sure?’ Lelldorin asked.
‘If my fingertips can find the spots on a pair of dice, they can certainly tell the difference between gut and linen twine,’ Silk replied.
‘All right. We’ll start here.’ Lelldorin attached one end of a ball of twine to the arrow. ‘I’ll go this way, and you go that.’
‘Right.’ Silk tied the end of his ball of string to the same shaft. He turned to Garion and Durnik. ‘Don’t overdo it with the water, you two,’ he said. ‘I don’t particularly want to get buried in a mud slide out here.’ Then he moved off, crouched low and groping for the next arrow. Lelldorin touched Garion’s shoulder briefly, then disappeared in the opposite direction.
‘The ground’s completely soaked now,’ Durnik murmured. ‘If we open those fissures about a foot wider, it’s going to flush most of the support out from under the wall.’
‘Good.’
Again they sent their probing thoughts out through the sodden earth of the hillside, located the layer of rock, and then swept back and forth along its irregular upper side until they located the first fissure. Garion felt a peculiar sensation as he began to wor
m his thought down that narrow crack where the water came welling up from far below, almost as if he were extending some incredibly long though invisible arm with slender, supple fingers at its end to reach down into the fissure. ‘Have you got it?’ he whispered to Durnik.
‘I think so.’
‘Let’s pull it apart then,’ Garion said, bracing his will.
Slowly, with an effort that made the beads of sweat stand out on their foreheads, the two of them forced the fissure open. A sharp, muffled crack reverberated up from beneath the sodden slope of the hillside as the rock broke under the force of their combined wills.
‘Who’s there?’ a voice demanded from atop the city wall.
‘Is it open wide enough?’ Garion whispered, ignoring that alarmed challenge.
‘The water’s coming up much faster,’ Durnik replied after a moment’s probing. ‘There’s a lot of pressure under that layer of rock. Let’s move on to the next place.’
A heavy twang came from somewhere behind them, and a peculiar slithering whistle passed overhead as the line from one of Yarblek’s catapult-launched grappling hooks arched up and over the north wall. The hook made a steely clink as it slapped against the inside of the wall, and then there was a grating sound as the points dug in.
Crouched low, Garion and Durnik moved carefully on to their left, trying to minimize the soggy squelching sound their feet made in the slush and probing beneath the earth for the next fissure. When Lelldorin came back to rejoin them, they had already opened two more of those hidden cracks lying beneath the saturated slope; behind and above them, there was a gurgling sound as the soupy mud oozed out of the hillside to cascade in a brown flood down the snowy slope. ‘I got all the way to the end of the line of arrows,’ Lelldorin reported. ‘The string’s in place on this side.’
‘Good,’ Garion said, panting slightly from his exertions. ‘Go back and tell Barak to start moving the troops into place.’
‘Right.’ Lelldorin turned and went off into the swirl of a sudden snow flurry.
‘We’ll have to be careful with this one,’ Durnik murmured, searching along under the soil. ‘There are a lot of fractures in the rock here. If we pull it too far apart, we’ll break up the whole layer and turn loose a river.’