the wall had been breached. The city was a place of ghosts. The living cowered behind locked doors and barred windows, praying their gods would keep them safe from the terrors without and the cholera within.
The occasional cry of a cholera victim made Smeds think more of haunts bedamned than of the living in pain.
LXXVI
Exile wouldn’t say where the spike was hid. He didn’t act like he wanted to pull something, just like he wanted to be in on the whole thing. Like he wanted a look at the cause for all the fuss. Can’t say I blame him. I saw it back when it was just a big nail. I wanted to see how it had changed.
He led us up toward Oar’s North Gate, got up on the wall, and started marching back and forth. We stuck tight. Outside, the friendly troops had begun a shift to the north. Exile took inspiration, told Brigadier Wildbrand to seal off the area inside the wall. We’d had enough trouble over that hunk of metal already. He asked for masons and heavy lifting equipment to be brought, too.
The damned spike was in the wall! No wonder nobody ever found it.
Wildbrand sent messages. Nightstalkers moved in. I was concerned. I would’ve been more concerned if the sky wasn’t filled with monsters.
It took two hours to assemble machinery and workmen, and another for them to get set up to start pulling the wall apart. Nobody could stay tense all that time.
Sometime during the wait Bomanz asked Exile, “What arrangements did you make to keep your fire fueled? Rendering the Limper was a good idea but you’ll have to pressure-cook him for days. The fire seems to be failing.”
Exile looked down south. Bomanz was right. Exile frowned, muttered, grumbled at Brigadier Wildbrand. Next time I looked some of my scabrous old buddies from the militia were running firewood to the pot. And not doing a very good job.
Once everything was set and the spike’s hiding place was sealed off inside the city and out, Exile asked Darling if she was ready to see it brought to light. She told him to get on with it.
There was a new kind of tension around, like everyone’s temper was short and we were all waiting for somebody to do something inexcusable so we could let off steam by kicking his butt.
Guys started banging away with sledges and wedges and pry bars and ten minutes later the first stone rose out of its setting.
The day got on into late afternoon before the workmen exposed the layer of mortar supposed to contain the spike. For a moment everyone forgot enmities and allegiances and crowded up to stare at the blackened half of the spike that lay exposed. Darling told Silent to go get it.
He borrowed a mason’s hammer, put on heavy leather gloves, took along a lined leather sack and somebody’s old shirt to wrap and pack it in. He wasn’t going to take any chances with the damned thing.
Darling readied a small wooden chest.
About the time Silent chopped the spike loose I glanced toward that giant pot. So I missed the beginning of the excitement around me but not its start at the pot, where the men feeding the fire suddenly scattered, like a school of minnows when a large hungry fish appears.
The top blew off the pot.
Something made of pieces of all the things that had gone into the pot, with way too many limbs and those in all the wrong places, crawled over the pot’s lip, fell into the fire.
Someone screamed behind me. I whirled.
One slight Nightstalker had knocked Brigadier Wildbrand off the back of the wall. Another had stuck a knife into Exile. The first was hurtling toward Bomanz.
Gossamer and Spidersilk!
Bomanz went over backward, flailing the ah-, and plunged headfirst into the snow that had drifted against the wall.
Only Darling retained any presence of mind. She let go the White Rose banner, yanked out her sword, gave Bomanz’s attacker a hearty chop, and followed him over the edge.
The one after Exile screeched.
That screech plain demolished everybody. We all just collapsed.
She jumped down and started hacking and slashing at Silent. She took the spike away, climbed back up, raised it overhead, and howled triumphantly.
Raven appeared out of nowhere, stuck her in the brisket, tried to knock the spike away, failed on his first try but got it his second. It tumbled down into the snow outside. Raven and whichever twin followed it a moment later, Raven grinding his knife into her belly while she screamed and tried to strangle him.
And outside the wall the thing from the pot humped and waddled and dragged itself toward us, oblivious to the resistance of the Plain creatures.
LXXVII
“Time to go,” Fish told Smeds.
They stepped out of hiding and strode toward the nearest breach like they were on a mission from the gods. Men wild-eyed with panic paid them no heed. They scrambled over rubble, dropped down outside, and started moving southward.
Smeds expected disaster every step. Not till they crossed the first low ridge and Oar disappeared did he begin to feel at all positive. “We did it! Goddamn! We really got out!”
“It could still go to hell on us,” Fish cautioned. Then he grinned. “But I’ll tell you, the future looks brighter than it has for months.”
LXXVIII
Impressions swirled as Raven toppled from the wall with the screaming sorceress: ground turning and rushing upward, a windwhale making its booming protest as its attempt to grab the thing from the pot was rebuffed.
Impact! He felt his blade reach her spine, going between vertebrae. He felt his right leg twist beneath her and snap. They screamed at one another as their faces smashed together.
He got the better of it. He retained consciousness and even a fragment of will. He dragged himself away, a few feet, started trying to guess the damage to his leg. Didn’t feel like a compound fracture. Hurt bad enough, though.
Bodies lay all around him. Only Bomanz seemed to be breathing.
Packing snow around the leg helped numb it a little.
People were yelling above. He saw Case jumping around, waving, pointing. He looked.
The thing from the pot was coming. It wasn’t a hundred yards away. And nothing seemed able to stop it. Mantas pounded it with their lightnings. It didn’t pay them any attention. It had only one thought: the silver spike.
Case was trying to get him to get the spike and get it up top before the thing got hold of it.
Bomanz rolled over, got to his hands and knees, shook his head, looked around dumbly, spotted the thing, turned almost as pale as the snow. He croaked, “I’ll try to hold it off. Find the spike. Get it up to Darling.”
He staggered to his feet, tottered toward the thing.
Raven supposed it really could not be called the Limper anymore, though the Taken’s insanity, ambition, and
