'Aye. Did you not tell the war council that Challerain Keep had fallen?'
Tip nodded.
'Well then, I think Blaine sent Dular away ere that battle began… as I said, to take him out of harm's way.'
Tip frowned and said, 'In my experience, Lady Mage Imongar, all of Mithgar stands before harm.'
Imongar canted her head. 'Aye, Sir Tipperton, it does at that.'
At last they arrived at the gate and made their way up to the ramparts above. There Imongar relieved Delander, another tall Mage like Alvaron, though Delander's hair was a rich golden brown, a shade nearly matching his eyes. After greeting Imongar and meeting Tipperton, Delander went down to take a meal and then to rest, for his was the first shift, midnight to morn, and standing watch on a Gar-gon was a task most fatiguing and dire, especially here where the pulse of the Dread was strongest.
Climbing to the weapons shelf, Tip stood and looked south. Teeming maggot-folk yet beringed the city, but the buccan had expected no less. Somewhere a deep drum thudded relentlessly, out among the Swarm. In their midst the Gargon's tent stood alone, Foul Folk all 'round but no nearer it seemed than a hundred long paces nigh. As to the Draedan itself, no creature was in evidence; but it was not gone from the city, nay, for the racking dread yet pulsed, a thudding in the gut keeping pace with the beat of the drum.
Tip tried to ignore all these things as he stood and looked long at the distant ridge south, trying to see… trying to see…
'Beau and the others are up there somewhere,' he said. 'I wonder how they fare?'
'How did they fare when you left, Tipperton?'
'Unh… on cold rations and camping in snow,' replied Tip, sighing, 'but otherwise they were hale.'
'Then I suspect that they fare that way still.'
Tip drew in a deep breath and let it out. 'It's no way to live, you know-on the ground with no fire and nought but cold food to eat.'
Imongar nodded. 'Much like an animal, neh?'
They stood and looked a moment longer, then Tip said, 'Did they launch the fire arrows?'
'Aye, as planned,' replied Imongar, 'last night and this dawn as well.'
'Good,' said Tip. 'By that sign alone they will know I am safe.'
'Ha!' barked Imongar, 'I would not call being surrounded by a Swarm to be safe by any means.' Imongar looked about, and seeing that none were near, she added in a low voice, 'Too, here in Dendor a dreadful sickness has come, cast over the walls by the Spaunen.'
Tip looked at her wide-eyed. 'Dreadful sickness? Cast over the walls?'
'Aye, a dark ill. Some twenty-four days agone the-'
Tip shuddered and said, 'They cut up the dead and flung the parts over the walls, using those, those-'
'Trebuchets,' supplied Imongar.
'Yes, those trebuchets.' Tip looked out. The great catapults were yet there, along with other siege engines: tall towers on ponderous wheels and dry-moat spans and scaling ladders and the massive rams. 'We saw what they did, Imongar, my comrades and I. From the ridge. From up there it was appalling, but down here it must have been horrible beyond all words. That was the day we left for Kachar to fetch the army of Dwarves.'
'Well, Tipperton, that was but the first day of their vile casting. For three more days they flung the dismembered dead into the city-Rucha, Loka, Gulka, men-it mattered not to the Rupt, their own dead or ours, all were cloven asunder and the parts hurled over the walls.
'The king ordered all and sundry to gather up the remains and bear them to the plaza to be thrown on a great flaming pyre.' Imongar now shuddered. 'Ai, the smell of burning flesh, 'twas whelming throughout all of Dendor.'
'But what has this to do with the illness?' asked Tipper-ton. 'I mean, how came such a sickness to be?'
'Ah, Tipperton, you ask a question which has puzzled healers down through the ages. Some say it is a curse, some a spell, some say divine retribution… yet this we know: the first to fall victim were a handful of those who had borne remains to the fires, but others have been stricken since. Buboes pustulant and black, boils seeping, raging fever, a terrible stench: those are the symptoms. Few survive, despite what the healers do, and those who die are burnt, just as were the dismembered battle dead, though in the prison yard instead of the city plaza.'
'Prison yard?'
'Aye, that's where they burn those slain by the scourge.'
Tip frowned but did not pursue the story behind that strange custom. 'Is it widespread?'
'Not yet, but with pestilence, none can ever say.'
Tip looked south. 'If this dark illness is what Beau has told me of, then he has a cure, or thinks he might.'
'Beau?'
Tip pointed at the far ridge. 'One of my companions.'
'And this cure…?'
Tip frowned in concentration. 'Silverroot and gwyn-thyme, if I remember correctly.'
'Silverroot I've heard of, but gwynthyme?'
'I seem to recall that both have other names: what these may be I have no idea, but Beau can tell us when the siege is broken. All I know is that gwynthyme is a golden mint and proof against poison. It saved Lady Phais from death by envenomed Ruck arrow. Vulg poison they said.'
'Vulg poison? Ai, this golden mint must be potent.'
Tip nodded. 'So I would say.'
'Well then, Tipperton, you must go to the healers and tell them what you know.'
'Well, I don't exactly know much more than what I just said. It's Beau who knows the cure, if a cure it is.'
'Still…'
'Look, we don't even know if this is the same disease Beau told me about,' said Tip, hopping down to the banquette. 'Regardless, where do I go?'
'To the prison-that's where they quarantine the ill- but you will need a pass. Captain Brad on the west gate can give you one.'
'Oh, Brud,' said Tip, sighing. 'He and I didn't exactly hit it off when first we met.'
'Nevertheless, he can give you a pass to the healers. And don't discount him, Tipperton, he is a good warrior, though stern.'
'And suspicious,' said Tip, then barked a laugh. 'I mean, who else would believe one of the so-called Litenfolk to be a Ruptish spy?' Again Tip laughed, and Imongar smiled. Then Tip looked west and north along the banquette toward the distant west gate. 'But all right, it's the dark ill we are speaking of and if I can help… -I'll go see him now.'
As Tip walked away, Imongar turned and faced south, faced the Swarm, faced into the pulse of the Dread and stood ready to spend years of her youth should the need arise.
'A cure for the scourge, and you would see the healers?' asked Captain Brud, his voice low.
Tip nodded.
The man pulled a drawer open in the table and took out a parchment. As he dipped the nib of the quill into the inkwell, he said, 'Take care to whom you speak of this illness, Sir Tipperton, for even the knowledge that pestilence is within Dendor will drive some men to rash acts.'
At hand, Alvaron grunted. 'Perhaps so, Captain Brud, but if indeed it is the dark plague, then it will not remain a secret long.'
Brud nodded grimly and then stood and pointed out a back window of the upper gatehouse and said to Tip, 'That grey building, squarish, made of stone, next to the tower, see you it?'
'The one with the wall all 'round?'
'Aye,' said Brud. 'It is the prison.'
'Gaol,' said Alvaron.
'Oh my, a jail that big?'
Brud shrugged. 'Not all of it is a prison… just the upper floor. The rest is where the town wardens live, or used to.'
