axes being struck together and the pommels of swords banging against shields. Iron hammers beat against nails as terrible screams split the night.
We were closer to the Tearam here, and I listened for the river's cleansing sound beneath all this noise. Beyond it, to the north, Mount Salmas was humped in shadows as was Mount Redruth to the east. More than once I turned away from the wall facing this dark peak. In that direction lay Argattha and my home; from the east, in only a few hours or less, would come the rising of the sun and the hope of a new day.
But when the morning finally broke free from the gray of twilight and the forms of the dark earth began to sharpen, a terrible sight greeted all who stood behind the battlements. For there, set into the ground along the barren strip in front of the walls, were forty wooden crosses. The naked bodies of men and three women were nailed to them. The rising wind carried their moans and cries up to us.
'Oh, my Lord!' Maram said to me. 'Oh, too bad!'
Atara, pressing close to my side as she looked out the crenel before us, let loose a soft cry of her own, saying, 'Oh, no – look Val! It's Alphanderry!'
I stared along the line of her pointed finger, peering out into the dawn. My eyes were not as keen as hers; at first all I could make out was the torment of men writhing on their bloodstained wooden towers. And then as the light grew stronger, I saw that the middlemost of the crosses bore the body of our friend. Cords running across his brow bound his head to the cross so that it wouldn't fall forward and we could get a good look at his face. His eyes were open and gazed out at the sky as if he were still hoping to catch sight of the Morning Star before the sun rose and devoured the dreams of night in its fiery wrath.
'Is he alive?' Maram asked me.
For a moment, I closed my eyes, remembering. Then I looked at the remains of Alphanderry as I felt for the beating of his heart, 'No, he's dead. And five days dead at that.'
'Then why crucify him? He's beyond all pain now.'
'He is, but we're not, eh?' Kane said, clenching his fist in fury. If his fingernails had been claws, they would have torn open his palms. 'Count Ulanu desecrates the dead in order to kill the hope of the living.'
It was why he had crucified the others, too. These, however, were all still alive and all too keenly aware of the agonies that they suffered It took at least two days to die upon the cross and sometimes much longer.
'Look!' one of the Librarians said, pointing at the cross next to Alphanderry's. 'It's Captain Donalam!'
Captain Donalam, hanging there helplessly, his anguished face caked with black blood, looked up toward the wall in silent supplication. I saw him meet eyes with his father. What passed between them was terrible to behold. I felt Lord Grayam's heart break open, and then there was nothing left inside him except defeat and a desire to die in his son's place.
'Look!' another Librarian said. 'There's Josam Sharod!'
And so it went, the knights on the wall calling out the names of their friends and companions – and of those few shepherds and farmers that Count Ulanu's men had captured outside the walls during his march upon the city.
A little while later, someone called out our names. We turned to see Liljana climbing the stairs to the wall, bearing a big pot of soup that she had made us for breakfast.
She set it down and joined us in looking out at the crosses.
'Alphanderry!' she cried out as if he were her own child. 'Why did they do this to you?'
'So,' Kane growled, 'the Dragon's priests make every abomination, seek every opportunity to degrade the human spirit.'
Just then, four of Count Ulanu's knights rode out from behind the line of crosses.
Atara fit an arrow to her bow to greet them, but she didn't fire it because one the knights bore a white flag. She listened, as we all did, when the knights stopped their horses beneath the walls and one of them called up to Lord Grayam requesting a parley.
'Count Ulanu would speak with you as to making a peace,' this proud-faced knight said.
'We spoke with him yesterday,' Lord Grayam called down. 'What has changed?'
In answer, the knight looked back at the crosses behind him and the broken outer wall of the city. 'Count Ulanu bids you to come down and listen to his terms.'
'Bids me, does he?' Lord Grayam snapped. Then, looking at his helpless son, his voice softened, and he said, 'All right then, bid Count Ulanu to come forward as you have, and we shall speak with him '
'From behind your little wall?' the knight sneered. 'Why should the Count trust that you will honor the parley and not order your archers to fire at him?' 'Because,' Lord Grayam said, 'we are to be trusted.'
The knight, seeing that he would gain no more concessions from Lord Grayam, nodded his head curtly. He signaled to his three companions; they turned to ride back through the crosses and return to their lines, which were drawn up across the barren ground with the city's houses just beyond them. After a few moments, Count Ulanu and five more knights rode back toward the wall, their dragon standard flapping in the early morning wind.
As soon as he had halted beneath the battlements, his eyes leaped out at us like fire arrows. He reserved the greatest part of his hate for Liljana. He stared at her with a pitilessness that promised no quarter. And she stared right back at him, at the wound her sword had gouged out of his face. What was left of his nose was a black, cauterized sore and looked as if the bitterest of acids had eaten it off.
'Hmmph,' Atara said, glancing at Liljana, 'I suppose he'll have to be called Ulanu the Not-So-Handsome now.'
For a few moments, Liljana and Count Ulanu locked eyes and contended with each other mind to mind. But Liljana had grown ever stronger and more attuned to her blue gelstei. It seemed that Count Ulanu couldn't bear her gaze, for he suddenly broke off looking at her. Then he spurred his horse forward a few paces and called out his terms to Lord Grayam: 'Surrender the Library to us and your people will be spared. Give us Sar Valashu Elahad and his companions and there will be no more crucifixions.'
'Supposing we believed you,' Lord Grayam said, 'what would befall my people upon surrender?'
'Only that they should do homage to me and swear to obey the wishes of Lord Morjin.'
'You'd make us slaves,' Lord Grayam said.
The terms that you've been offered are the same we extended to Inyam. And they now crossed swords with us or murdered us with their cowardly fire.' Here he looked up at Maram, who tied to hold his gaze but could not.
'You're very generous,' Lord Grayam called down sarcastically.
Count Ulanu pointed at the crosses and said, 'How many more of the children of your city are you prepared to see mounted thusly?’
'We cannot surrender the books to you,' Lord Grayam said. At this, many of the Librarians along the wall grimly nodded their heads.
'Books!' Count Ulanu spat out. Then he reached into the pocket of his cloak and pulled out a large book bound with leather as dark as the skin of a sun-baked corpse. He held it up and said, 'This is the only book of any value. Either other books are in accord with what it tells, and so are superfluous, or else they mock its truth and so are abominations.'
I knew of this single volume of lies that he showed us: it was the Darakul Elu, the Black Book, which had been written by Morjin. It told of his dreams of uniting the world under the Dragon banner; it told of a new order in which men must serve the priests of the Kallimun, as they served Morjin – and that all must serve his lord, Angra Mainyu. It was the only book I knew that the Librarians refused to allow through the doors of the Library.
'We cannot surrender the books,' Lord Grayam said again, looking at Count Ulanu's book with loathing. 'We've vowed to give our lives to protect them.'
'Are books more precious to you than the lives of your people?'
Lord Grayam squared back his tired shoulders and spoke with all the dignity that he could command. It was then that I learned what hard men and women the Librarians truly were. His words stunned me and rang in my mind: 'The lives of men come and go like leaves budding on a tree in the spring and torn off in the fall. But knowledge is eternal – as the tree is sacred. We shall never surrender.'
'We shall see,' Count Ulanu snarled.
Lord Grayam pointed at the crosses and said, 'If you have any mercy, take these people down from there and bind their wounds.'
'Mercy, is it?' Count Ulanu shouted. 'If it's mercy you want, that you shall have.
