Grey fire ripped through the room, for an instant exposing its entirety, branding the carnage on the backs of my eyeballs. The forvalaka screamed, this time with genuine pain. Point for the wizards.
It streaked toward me. I hacked in panic as it whipped past. I missed. It whirled, took a running start, leapt at the wizards. They met it with another flashy spell. The forvalaka howled. A man shrieked. The beast thrashed on the floor like a dying snake. Men stabbed it with pikes and swords. It regained its feet and streaked out the exit we had kept open for ourselves.
“It’s coming!” the Captain bellowed to the Lieutenant.
I sagged, knowing nothing but relief. It was gone... Before my butt hit the floor One-Eye was dragging me up. “Come on. Croaker. It hit Tom-Tom. You got to help.”
I staggered over, suddenly aware of a shallow gash down one leg. “Better clean it good,” I muttered. “Those claws are bound to be filthy.”
Tom-Tom was a twist of human wreckage. His throat had been torn out, his belly opened. His arms and chest had been ripped to the bone. Amazingly, he was still alive, but there was nothing I could do. Nothing any physician could have done. Not even a master sorcerer, specializing in healing, could have salvaged the little black man. But One-Eye insisted I try, and try I did till the Captain dragged me off to attend men less certain of dying. One-Eye was bellowing at him as I left.
“Get some lights in here!” I ordered. At the same time the Captain began assembling the uninjured’ at the open doorway, telling them to hold it.
As the light grew stronger the extent of the debacle became more evident. We had been decimated. Moreover, a dozen brothers who had not been with us lay scattered around the chamber. They had been on duty. Among them were as many more of the Syndic’s secretaries and advisers. “Anybody see the Syndic?” the Captain demanded. “He must have been here.” He and Match and Elmo started searching. I did not have much chance to follow that. I patched and sewed like a madman, commandeering all the help I could. The forvalaka left deep claw wounds which required careful and skillful suturing.
Somehow, Goblin and Silent managed to calm One-Eye enough so he could help. Maybe they did something to him. He worked in a daze barely this side of unconsciousness. I took another look at Tom-Tom when I got a chance. He was still alive, clutching his little drum. Damn! That much stubbornness deserved reward. But how? My expertise simply was not adequate.
“Yo!” Match shouted. “Captain!” I glanced over. He was tapping a chest with his sword.’
The chest was of stone. It was a strongbox of a type favored by Beryl’s wealthy. I guess this one weighed five hundred pounds. Its exterior had been fancifully carved. Most of the decoration had been demolished. By the tearing of claws? Elmo smashed the lock and pried the lid open. I glimpsed a man lying atop gold and jewels, arms around his head, shaking. Elmo and the Captain exchanged grim looks.
I was distracted by the Lieutenant’s arrival. He had held on downstairs till he got worried about nothing having happened. The forvalaka had not gone down.
“Search the tower,” the Captain told him. “Maybe it went up,” There were a couple levels above us.
When next I glanced at the chest it was closed again. Our employer was nowhere in evidence. Match was seated atop it, cleaning his nails with a dagger. I eyed the Captain and Elmo. There was something the slightest bit odd about them.
They would not have finished the forvalaka’s task for her, would they? No. The Captain couldn’t betray Company ideals that way. Could he?
I did not ask.
The search of the tower revealed nothing but a trail of blood leading to the tower top, where the forvalaka had lain gathering strength. It had been badly hurt, but it had escaped by descending the outer face of the tower.
Someone suggested we track it. To that the Captain replied, “We’re leaving Beryl. We’re no longer employed. We have to get out before the city turns on us.” He sent Match and Elmo to keep an eye on the native garrison. The rest evacuated the wounded from the Paper Tower.
For several minutes I remained unchaperoned. I eyed the big stone chest. Temptation arose, but I resisted. I did not want to know.
Candy got back after all the excitement. He told us the legate was at the pier offloading his troops.
The men were packing and loading, some muttering about events in the Paper Tower, others bitching about having to leave. You stop moving and immediately put down roots. You accumulate things. You find a woman. Then the inevitable happens and you have to leave it all. There was a lot of pain floating around our barracks.
I was at the gate when the northerners came, I helped turn the capstan that raised the portcullis. I felt none too proud. Without my approval the Syndic might never have been betrayed.
The legate occupied the Bastion. The Company began its evacuation. It was then about the third hour after midnight and the streets were deserted.
Two-thirds of the way to the Gate of Dawn the Captain ordered a halt. The sergeants assembled everyone able to fight. The rest continued with the wagons.
The Captain took us north on the Avenue of the Older Empire, where Beryl’s emperors had memorialized themselves and their triumphs. Many of the monuments are bizarre, and celebrate such minutia as favorite horses, gladiators, or lovers of either sex.
I had a bad feeling even before we reached the Rubbish Gate. Uneasiness grew into suspicion, and suspicion blossomed into grim certainty as we entered the martial fields. There is nothing near the Rubbish Gate but the Fork
Barracks.
The Captain made no specific declaration. When we reached the Fork compound every man knew what was afoot.
The Urban Cohorts were as sloppy as ever. The compound gate was open and the lone watchman was asleep We trooped inside unresisted. The Captain began assigning tasks.
Between five and six thousand men remained there. Their officers had restored some discipline, having entice them into restoring their weapons to the armories. Traditionally, Beryl’s captains trust their men with weapons only on the eve of battle.
Three platoons moved directly into the barracks, killing men in their beds. The remaining platoon established a blocking position at the far end of the compound.
The sun was up before the Captain was satisfied. We withdrew and hurried after our baggage train. There wasn’t a man among us who hadn’t had his fill.
We were not pursued, of course. No one came besieging the camp we established on the Pillar of Anguish. Which was what it was all about. That and the release of several years of pent-up anger.
Elmo and I stood at the tip of the headland, watching the afternoon sun play around the edges of a storm far out to sea. It had danced in and swamped our encampment with its cool deluge, then had rolled off across the water again. It was beautiful, though not especially colorful.
Elmo had not had much to say recently. “Something eating you, Elmo?” The storm moved in front of the light, giving the sea the look of rusted iron. I wondered if the cool had reached Beryl.
“Reckon you can guess, Croaker.”
“Reckon I can.” The Paper Tower. The Fork Barracks. Our ignoble treatment of our commission. “What do you think it will be like, north of the sea?”
“Think the black witch will come, eh?”
“He’ll come, Elmo. He’s just having trouble getting his puppets to jig to his tune.” As who did not, trying to tame that insane city?
“Uhm.” And, “Look there.”
A pod of whales plunged past rocks lying off the headland. I tried to appear unimpressed, and failed. The beasts were magnificent, dancing in the iron sea.
We sat down with our backs toward the lighthouse. It seemed we looked at a world never defiled by Man. Sometimes I suspect it would be better for our absence. “Ship out there,” Elmo said.
I didn’t see it till its sail caught the fire of the afternoon sun, becoming an orange triangle edged with gold, rocking and bobbing with the rise and fall of the sea. “Coaster. Maybe a twenty tonner.”
“That big?”
