The Disciple summoned the fury of heaven again. Lightning hammered the taller, stubborner western wall of el Aswad.
The northmen were stationed on the main fortress’s north wall, near its juncture with the west wall, away from the fighting. Haroun joined them. “Damn them,” he said. “They were smart. They made it impossible for Father to sortie.”
Neither Bragi nor Haaken responded. They were completely involved in themselves, expecting Sanguinet’s order to fall in and move into the fighting. They jumped each time lightning struck, though the Disciple’s point of attack was well away.
No order came.
A wide section of western rampart gave way.
In the outlying sub-fortress Hawkwind launched a counterattack. He overwhelmed the enemy there, rushed into the main fortress, attacked the enemy entering through the west wall. The fighting there was among buildings and sheds, with little room for maneuver. It was confused and savage.
Hawkwind cordoned the breeched area, then pushed forward, slowly compressing the invaders. The last were evicted before sunset. The day’s combat produced roughly equal losses for each side.
The defenders began clearing rubble and erecting a secondary barrier behind the gap in the west wall. The sub-fortress they decided to abandon.
The hour was late but Bragi was still at his post. There were no reliefs. Haaken was napping. So it went all around the wall. Every other man sleeping. The night was still but for the sounds of construction work.
Haroun strolled out of the night. He said, “Tomorrow they’ll be rested and we’ll be exhausted. My father thinks tomorrow may be the end.”
Bragi grunted. El Nadim was thinking. Just wear the defense down. Morale was at a low ebb anyway, with the Wahlig’s men convinced that the struggle was hopeless.
“We need help,” Haroun said. “But help isn’t going to come. The tribal leaders are deserting us.”
Again Bragi grunted.
“They will join el Nadim. The desert will fill with men eager for the plunder of el Aswad. Something has to be done.”
“Your father is doing what he can.”
“Not everything. I have talents he won’t use. He’s afraid I’d get hurt. I could turn it around if he’d let me.”
“How?”
“I came to thank you. For what you did out there.”
“No thanks needed. Anyway, you already did.”
“There’s a debt now. My family always pays its debts.”
Bragi didn’t argue. He had a low opinion of human gratitude, though. Look at his father and the Thane. No two men ever owed one another more.
Haroun ambled off, seemingly distracted. The whole encounter was puzzling. Bragi decided Haroun needed a keeper.
Haroun was back within the hour. He carried a rope and small black bag. “What are you up to?” Bragi demanded when Haroun tied the rope to a merlon.
“Going to give the Disciple some of his own back.”
“Who told you to? I didn’t get any orders about you going out.”
“I told me.” Haroun pitched the rope into the darkness. “I’ll be back before anybody misses me.”
“The hell. I can’t let you...”
Haroun was gone.
Bragi leaned forward. “You don’t know what you’re doing. Look at you. You don’t even know how to rappel.”
Haaken woke up. “What’re you making all that racket for?” he grumbled. “They coming?”
“No. It’s that Haroun. He just went over the wall.”
“Call the sergeant of the guard. Don’t stand there squawking like an old hen.”
“Then he’d get in trouble.”
“So? What’s it to you?”
“I like him.”
“He’s deserting, ain’t he?”
“No. He’s going after El Murid.”
Haaken levered himself upright, stared down into the darkness. Haroun had disappeared. “Damned fool if you ask me.”
“I’m going after him.”
“What? You’re crazy. They could hang you for leaving your post. He’s dumb enough to go down there, leave him go. No skin off our noses.”
Bragi debated. He liked what he had seen of Haroun. But the youth had a romantic streak that would get him killed. “He’s alone out there, Haaken. I’m going.” He arranged his weapons so he could descend without them getting in his way.
Haaken sighed, began arranging his own weapons.
“What’re you doing?”
“I’m going to let you go by yourself? My own brother?”
Bragi argued. Haaken snarled back. The debate became so heated their squadmates came to investigate. And in moments the whole squad was talking about accompanying Bragi.
That gave him pause. It was one thing to risk his own neck, quite another to lead the squad into an action his superiors would not approve.
What motivated the men, anyway? He wasn’t sure. But, then, he didn’t know why he was going himself. “It’s your necks if we get found out,” he said. “Stay or go. It’s up to you.” He grabbed Haroun’s rope, swung over the edge, began descending. Halfway down the rope jerked. He spied a manshape against the stars. “Damned Haaken,” he muttered. And smiled, feeling warm within.
He crouched among the boulders at the foot of the wall, trying to recall an easy approach to the Disciple’s encampment, wondering if anyone up top would spot him and think he was the enemy. Haaken joined him. A third man dropped to one knee on his right. Then a fourth and fifth arrived, and more, till the whole squad gathered. “You idiots,” he whispered. “All right. Keep it quiet, unless you want somebody up there to plink you.” He stole forward, trying to approximate the route he suspected Haroun had taken.
The fates were kind. The watch on the wall did not spot them. That no longer a worry, Bragi became concerned about enemy pickets.
He stole within bowshot of the enemy encampment without finding Haroun. “He hornswoggled you,” Haaken said. “He cut and ran.”
“Not him. He’s around somewhere, going to pull some stunt.” He looked back, eyeing the fortress from the foe’s perspective. It was a huge, forbidding outline, looming against the stars like the edge of a giant’s ragged saw. Not a light shown anywhere. The construction crews had finished their work. “Spread out. We’ll wait here till something happens.”
The enemy camp was quiet, though fires glowed behind the stockade. An occasional sentry appeared, silhouetted by the glow.
“Bragi!” somebody hissed. “Over there.”
“I see it.”
Just a whisper of pale lilac light limned a boulder momentarily. A lilac bead dribbled toward the camp stockade. Defying gravity, it floated upward.
A sentry tilted forward, dropped off the wall. He struck earth with a soft crump.
“What’re we into here?” Haaken demanded. “That’s sorcery, Bragi. Killing sorcery. Maybe we ought to go back.”
Bragi rested a steadying hand on Haaken’s forearm. Another lilac glimmer appeared. Another bead danced toward the camp. Another sentry fell from the stockade, dying in utter silence.
Something scraped on stone. Staring intently slightly to one side of the sound, Bragi discerned a shadow sliding toward the wall. “That’s him. He’s going in.” He rose.
“You’re not going too?” Haaken whispered.
“No.” That would be certain suicide, wouldn’t it? “I was going to catch him. But it’s too late, isn’t it?”
Chapter Twelve
Nightworks
Haroun crouched at the foot of the stockade, uncoiled with all the spring he could exact from young muscles. His fingers found purchase on top. He hung for a moment, listening. No alarm. No footsteps hastening his way. He hoisted himself till his eyes were an inch above the edge.
There were still a few fires burning, and a few men around them. Most were preparing wholesale breakfasts. Evidently El Murid meant to start early. No sentry was nearby.
He heaved upward. Part of the wall gave way, dribbling
down with what seemed to him an incredible racket. The stockade was constructed of materials no better than sticks and stones mortared together with moistened clay. The clay was now dry, becoming powdery. He scrabbled for another handhold, rolled across the top and dropped onto a rickety catwalk, slithered into a shadow. He remained as still as stone then, awaiting an alarm and forming a mental map he would not forget in the heat of action.
No one noticed the noise he’d made.
How soon would the sentries be missed? Surely not long. Ten minutes? That might be too tight. He had to locate the Disciple before he could strike.
Before he moved on he assumed the camouflage of a minor spell that would avert the unsuspecting eye, making him effectively invisible till he did something blatant.
He dropped to the ground, stole along the wall till he could move into the camp in the shelter of tent shadows. He harkened to his weakling shaghûn’s senses, trying to locate the Disciple through the aura of his amulet. Only a vague sense of direction came, centerward. He needed no sorcery to guess that. He wished he’d had more time with his instructors, had been able to study with the masters, and had attained a higher level of proficiency. But there had been so many things to learn, and so little time for study...
There! That way. The throb of the amulet was strongest thither.
He moved like a panther, shadow in shadow. That romantic undercurrent welled up. He imagined himself more than what he was, nominated himself a mighty avenger. Dangerous as his undertaking was, he was not afraid. Fright did not occur to him. His fearlessness was the fearlessness of folly.
The camp center was set off from the remainder by a twenty-yard width of barren earth. Beyond stood a half dozen tents guarded by twenty Invincibles. These sentries were posted too close to slip past.
He could not pick out the tent occupied by the Disciple. Time fled. Any minute the absent sentries would be missed. He had to do something.
He made the lilac magic, sent several of the tiny, deadly balls hunting. And kept sending them as fast as he could create them.
There was no other way. There would be an alarm, and an alert, and mad confusion. In it he might get close enough to do the deed.
An Invincible shouted. Not one of those touched by a violet pellet, of course. Those would make no sound again, ever.
Still creating and releasing the killing pellets, Haroun crept forward... and found himself face to face with a giant in white. A giant not misled by his feeble spell of concealment. A scimitar howled down. Haroun hurled himself aside, stumbled into a low tent, tripped, scrambled into a shadow, crouched, stared back at the Invincible. The man lost him, but only for an instant. Scimitar raised, he charged.
Haroun drew his blade.
The camp was coming to life. Men shouted questions. In the circle guarded by Invincibles — a dozen of whom lay dead — tent flaps whipped open. Officers demanded reports. Haroun spotted a man who had to be el Nadim. He tried to unleash another lilac bead. But the giant was upon him again.
He blocked a stroke so strong his whole arm went numb.
The Invincible left himself open to a counterstroke, but Haroun hadn’t the strength to deliver it.
Another blow fell. Haroun rolled with it. Again he could not take advantage of an opportunity. His weapon had been forced too far out of position.
Men shouted at his opponent, who shouted back.
The third stroke was as overwhelming as its predecessors. This time Haroun kicked as his blade was driven down and away. His toe connected with the giant’s knee. The man staggered. He was slow getting his guard up. Haroun struck before he did so.
He whirled and ran a short way, banging bewildered warriors out of his way. He dived into a shadow behind a tent. The tent was unoccupied. He slithered under the fabric’s edge.
The uproar grew. There were cries that the Wahlig was attacking. Men rushed to the stockade. As many ran hither and thither in panic. A very few sought the interloper who had slain the Disciple’s guards.
The halloo moved away. Haroun peeped outside, saw no one. He crept out and slid from shadow to shadow, toward the Disciple’s tent. He knew which it was now.
Behind him flames rose. In their panic some of the enemy had scattered a fire. Some tents had caught. The blaze was spreading.
The fallen Invincibles had been replaced. Haroun cursed. There was no way, now, that he could deliver the stroke he had been anticipating all day.
He would have to use the Power. He hadn’t wanted to do that. He wanted the Disciple to see death coming, wanted the man to look into his eyes and recognize the boy from Al Rhemish. Wanted him to know who as well as why.
The lilac killer would not do. It would take the nearest Invincible, not a man cowering inside a tent. It had to be something else. His arsenal of petty magicks contained little that was apt. Again he cursed the chain of circumstance that had prevented his achieving his full potential as a shaghûn.
He selected a spell that would induce the symptoms of typhoid, ran through the chants softly, visualized the El Murid he recalled from Al Rhemish. He loosed the spell.
A cry of agony answered it.
Some Invincibles rushed to their master. And some rushed toward Haroun.
“What the hell is going on?” Haaken asked.
“I don’t know,” Bragi replied. “But he’s sure got them stirred up.”
“Maybe we ought to help. Maybe if they think they’re under attack he can get out in the confusion.”
Bragi doubted that. He had written Haroun off. The decision he faced was whether or not to rush back to el Aswad in hopes he hadn’t been missed. It had to be too late. Might as well do some good here.
Some of the enemy were fleeing the camp. Within, the fires were spreading. Horses were making panic noises.
“All right. Let’s go. Harass the ones running away. You guys with the bows. Shoot a few over the wall.”
Alarms awakened Megelin Radetic. Groggy, he staggered from his cubicle, his seldom used sword dragging. A night attack? He hadn’t anticipated that. It wasn’t to the Disciple’s advantage. The man merely needed to wear the defense down with hammerings like yesterday’s.
He paused, listened. Plenty of people running around yelling, but no thunder. No crash of lightning striking the fortress. Maybe it wasn’t an attack.
What, then?
He reached the north court to find it aboil with men rushing out the gate. He grabbed a soldier. “What’s happening?” The man pulled away. So did the next he caught. Nobody wanted to spare a moment. Radetic dragged his weary bones to the ramparts.
The Disciple’s camp was ablaze. Men were scurrying everywhere. Animals were stampeding with the men. There was fighting. The defenders of el Aswad were falling on their foes in a great disorderly rush. The anthill simile occurred to him. “Trite,” he murmured.
It took Megelin just seconds to guess how it had started. “Haroun! You fool!” He panicked. His own Haroun... He practically threw himself off the wall in his haste to get down there.
The observer within was amused. The boy isn’t your child, it said. He’s only on loan to you.
Even so, his heart was ripped by fear that the boy had destroyed himself in some romantic scheme for rescuing his father’s fortunes.
Bragi kept his men close together, unbroken by the human stampede. Two score bodies lay around them. The enemy was easy in this state.
A rabble from the fortress arrived, as disorganized as the foe, but with blood in their eyes. The area became a slaughter yard. Bragi urged his men toward the gateway.
Entering was easy. The enemy simply ran away or piled over the stockade. Guildsmen and the Wahlig’s warriors followed Bragi’s squad.
What now? Where to look? Haroun wanted the Disciple. El Murid’s quarters should be near the center of camp. “This way. On the double.” Haaken kept the men together while Bragi ran off to the right, skirting the fires. His squad left a trail of enemy injured. Wild-eyed horses proved a greater danger t
han enemy weapons.
Bragi found an aisle of encampment unthreatened by flames. He turned toward the camp’s heart.
Haroun stifled a cry when the Invincibles slammed him to the earth at El Murid’s feet. He spat at their chieftain. The man cuffed him.
“The Wahlig’s brat, Lord.”
“You’re sure, Mowaffak?”
“The very one who attacked you in Al Rhemish.”
“He was just a boy.”
“That was a long time ago, Lord. He’s learned more shaghûn tricks, it seems.”
Haroun watched the Disciple’s face darken. He compared it with the face he recalled. The man had aged beyond his years. He looked old. “You’d damn me when you use a fouler sorcery yourself?”
The Invincible hit him again. Blood filled his mouth. He bit down on the pain, spat scarlet on the man’s robe. “Pig eater.”
“You delude yourself. I use no sorcery.” El Murid puffed up with offended dignity. “I call upon the might of the Lord, as vested in me by his angel.”
“Somebody is deluding himself.”
El Nadim arrived. “Lord, the camp is total chaos. The fires can’t be contained. Guild soldiers are inside the stockade. We’d best get out.”
The Disciple’s face darkened further. “No.”
“Lord!” Mowaffak snapped. “Be reasonable. This scum panicked the men. The enemy are upon us. We can’t make a fight of it. It’s get out or be destroyed. Now, before the panic infects the Invincibles.”
El Nadim agreed. “We can rally the survivors on the road, then return.” He exchanged a look with the Invincible.
Haroun caught it. Both knew there would be no second attempt on the fortress. This night would see their strength leeched. “None of you will escape,” he gurgled. “You’re dead men.” Big talk. But maybe they would be destroyed. He heard the fighting now.
Agony lanced across the Disciple’s features. Bodyguards rushed to support him. The Invincible captain snarled, “Get him onto a horse. Get everybody you can mounted. Riding double if you have to.” He faced Haroun. “What did you do to him?”
Haroun said nothing.