There was no time to speculate upon their method of getting there — it was enough that they had managed to break through. Two more of the seafarers, one of the Guard were down. The dead and wounded, friends and foe alike were disregarded by the beaked helms. Bodies slipped downstairs — they could not be stopped there. The plug must come below.
Simon leaped for the first landing, kicking open the two doors fronting on it. The furniture favored by Sulcar was heavy stuff. But the smaller pieces could be moved. In that moment Simon summoned up strength he did not know he possessed, jerking and pushing articles out to choke the stairwell.
A beaked head faced him through the upraised legs of a chair used to top his efforts, and a sword point struck for his face. Simon crashed the chair over on that helm. There was a smarting cut on his cheek but the attacker was not a part of the barricade.
“Sul! Sul!”
Simon was elbowed to one side and he saw Magnis’ face, as red as its tawny bristle of mustache, loom up as the trader chopped down, smashed up at the first wave of invaders to reach the stair barrier and claw at the stuff which formed it.
Aim, fire, aim again. Throw away an empty dart clip, reload to fire anew. Straddle a Guardsman down moaning, until the man could be dragged back into whatever safety anyone could find in the keep now. Fire — Fire!
Somehow Simon had come back into the hall, then the party of which he was one were on another stairway, selling each flight dearly as they descended. There was a thin smoke here — tendrils of fog? No, for when it wreathed them its acrid bite stung nose and throat setting them coughing. Aim — fire — grab dart packs from the belt of a fallen Guardsman who could no longer use any weapon.
The steps were behind now. Men shouted hoarsely, and the smoke was worse. Simon smeared his hand across his watering eyes and pulled at the throat scarf of his helmet. His breath came in shallow gasps.
Blindly he followed after his companions. Doors of five-inch thickness swung after them, were barred and locked. One… two… three… four of such barriers. Then they stumbled into a room facing an installation housed in a casing taller than the giant of a man who leaned against it, dull-eyed. The Guardsmen and the seafarers who had made it rimmed the room, leaving the strange machine to the master of the city.
Magnis Osberic had lost his bear-crested helm, his fur cloak was a tattered string trailing from one shoulder. His ax lay across the top of the casing, and from its blade a red line dripped sluggishly to the stone pavement. The ruddiness of his coloring had faded, leaving his skin with a withered look. His eyes were wide, staring at men and not seeing them — Simon guessed that the man was in a state of shock.
“Gone!” He picked up the ax, slipped its long half back and forth in his rope-calloused hand.”From the air like winged demons! No man can fight against demons.” Then he laughed softly, warmly, as a man might laugh when he took a willing woman into his arms. “But there is also an answer to demons. Sulcarkeep shall not serve that spawn for a nesting place!”
His bull head lowered for the charge once more, swung slowly as he singled out the Estcarp men from among his own followers. “You have fought well, you of the witch blood. But this last is no doom laid upon you. We shall loose the energy which feeds the city powers and blast the port. Get you forth that you may perhaps settle the accounting in a way those air-flying wizards can understand. Be sure we shall take with us such a number of them that they shall have thinned ranks against that day! Go your way, witch men, and leave us of Sulcarkeep to our final reckoning!”
Urged by his eyes and his voice, as if he had caught each of them in a bear’s grip and thrust them away from him and his, the remnant of the Guard gathered together. Koris was still with them, his hawk helm lacking a wing. And the witch, her face serene, but her lips moving as she walked quietly across the chamber. Twenty more men and Simon.
As one the Guards drew to attention, their stained swords swinging up in salute to those they left. Magnis grunted.
“Pretty, pretty, witchmen. But this is no time for parade. Get out!”
They filed through a small door he indicated, Koris through last to slam and bar it. At a dead run they took that passage. Luckily there were globe lights set in the roof at intervals and the floor was smooth, for the need for haste burned in them.
The sound of sea and surf grew stronger and they came out in a cave where small boats swung at anchor.
“Down!” Simon was pushed aboard with others, and Koris’ hand slapped between his shoulders, sending him face down. Men landed on him and about him, pinning him flat to the rocking bottom. There was the slam of another door — or was it a deck shutting over them? Light was gone and with it air. Simon lay quiet, having no idea of what would happen next.
Under him the boat moved, men’s bodies rolled, he was kicked, prodded, and he buried his face in the crook of his arm. The craft which held them swung about and his stomach fought against that motion. He had never been too good a sailor. Mainly occupied with his fight against sickness, he was not prepared for a blast which seemed to end the world with one blow of sound and pressure.
They were still rolling in the waves, but when Simon lifted his head he gulped clean air. He wriggled and strove, paying no attention to the grunts and protests of those about him. No more fog was his first dazed thought — and then — it was day! The sky, the sea about them, the coast behind were clear and bright.
But when did the sun rise from the shore, leap up in sky-touching flames from a land base? He had been deafened by the blast, but not blinded. They were heading out to sea, leaving the source of that heat and light behind them.
One… two… three cockshells of boats he counted. There were no sails, they must be motored in some way. A man sat erect in the stem of theirs, his shoulders identifying him. Koris held that tiller. They were free of the inferno which had been the port of Sulcarkeep, but where did they head?
Fog gone, and the fire on shore giving them light. But the waves which swept them along were not born of any calm sea. Perhaps the shock of that blast with which Magnis had destroyed the keep had been communicated to the ocean. For a wind drove down upon them as if a hand strove to press them beneath the surface, and those on board the featherweight ships began to realize that they had gained perhaps only a few minutes of life rather than full escape.
PART II: VENTURE OF VERLAINE
I
AX MARRIAGE
The sea was dull and gray, the color of an ax blade which would never take on a sheen no matter how much one polished, or a steel mirror misted by moisture one could not rub away. And above it the sky was as flat, until it was hard to distinguish the meeting line between air and water.
Loyse huddled on the ledge beneath the arrow-split window. She dreaded the depths, for this turret, bulging roundly from its parent wall, hung directly over the wicked, surf-collared rocks of the shoreline, and she had no head for heights. Yet she was often drawn to this very seat because when one stared straight out into the emptiness, which was seldom troubled save by a diving bird, one could see freedom.
Her hands, long fingered, narrow of palm, pressed flat against the stone on either side of the window as she did lean forward an inch or so, making herself eye what she feared, as she made herself do many things her body, her mind shrank from. To be Fulk’s daughter one must grow an inner casing of ice and iron which no blow to the flesh, no taunt to the spirit could crack. And she had been intent upon that fashioning of an interior citadel for more than half the years of her short life.
There had been many women at Verlaine, for Fulk was a man of lusty appetite. And Loyse had watched
