“Go on, you old fool Majister!” I roared. “I’ve a battle to fight and you’re getting under my feet!”
The Emperor stared at me with eyes in which an agony had been born. Vomanus ran up. His sword dripped blood.
“They’re through on the other side!”
“Thank the Emperor for that and the onker Vektor. They detained me when I should have been fighting. Get everyone back to the central tower, Vomanus.
He ran off and then the smash of Chuliks reached me and I had to skip and jump, slash and thrust, very busily for a space. I left the Chuliks stretched upon the dusty rocks and ran back. I could see the heads of the Bowmen of Loh in the ruined tower, but they were not loosing their deadly shafts. We had expended all our arrows.
The smaller arrows of the Undurkers were not of great use, but some of the Bowmen, who boasted they could loose a leg of ponsho and hit the chunkrah’s eye, let fly and brought down their men. Inside the tower I paused to take stock.
We had lost a lot of men. We were down to twenty-four Bowmen, and sixteen halfling mercenaries. Out there, Furtway, although he had lost large numbers, must still have three or four hundred to hurl against us. And without arrows we were in parlous state.
“Rocks!” I roared. “We will throw rocks down on them and break their skulls!”
“Aye!” shouted Seg Segutorio. “They haven’t a chance!”
The men reacted to that. Now they had faced the reality of the situation they knew they must fight on. One reality was, of course, that they had seen me thrust a Fristle through the body when he had attempted to run out toward our foemen, his hands empty and high over his head. That had not been murder. That had been execution of a traitor. I hated it, but it was done in the heat of battle, when the blood sang, when that dreadful and despised red curtain of which I have spoken drops before the eyes, and a man who is a man must struggle to reach past it. The other reality was less starkly brutal; much more of the mores of Kregen. They would earn their pay, these hireling soldiers. They had no complaints now about food and drink, for they sensed they might not live long enough to want. The Emperor approached me again. “Strom Drak, I would like to speak with you-”
“Not now, Majister. I’m busy. If you’ve a problem, see Vomanus, or Seg Segutorio.”
I spun away and roared vilely at two Chuliks who, in their eagerness to procure rocks for skull-crushing, were prizing loose a stone that would have brought down the upper corner ruins. As we sorted out that, I looked over the jagged masonry wall and saw quite clearly the quick energetic figures of Furtway’s men advancing. So Zim and Genodras had risen. So it was daylight.
“All the better for us to see them!” I roared. “They’ll be sorry they messed with us!”
We met the enemy as they advanced with a shower of rocks. Men fell, to join the piles of other bodies feathered with the long Lohvian arrows. But they pressed on. I looked for Furtway, Jenbar, and Larghos. Some new dynamic had been injected into the attack. They came on with a firm tread, ignoring their casualties, and so burst into the foot of the tower. I had ordered everyone aloft on the single rickety platform remaining. From this we hurled down rocks. Arrows sought us. Every now and then a Bowman or a halfling would clutch himself, looking stupidly at the arrow in him, and then pitch forward to crash to the stones beneath. Around then I realized — and despaired as far as ever I allow myself to despair -
that the men with me believed all was lost. They did not think we would live through this. The Emperor with his nobles had been perched right at the top in the highest of the three angled corners remaining. I prowled the canted platform below, urging my men to conserve their rocks and to hurl only when a foeman attempted too boldly to climb. I had brought us into an impasse. This was not my way of fighting. I couldn’t get at those rasts down there.
There were few enough of us left now for a breakout to be a possibility. It was our only chance to save the Emperor and his men. I had to make that attempt to save him now. For my Delia’s sake. I went up and told him.
He looked at me, and a look on his face I could not fathom made me return it with as ugly a glare as any I have bestowed on an unfortunate in my life.
“We stand a good chance now, Majister, and we will leave no one behind except the wounded who cannot run. And,” I added bitterly, “they are mostly below, poor devils, well on their way to the Ice Floes of Sicce.”
The Emperor said, “You are a wild and strange man, Drak. I thought this even when I heard of your exploits on Valka, when I signed your patent of nobility.” He pulled and pushed a ring on his middle left finger. “Well, Strom Drak. If you save me alive from here, I will do more than make you a Strom, or a Vad, or a Kov. You will be fit to be called Prince Majister of Vallia.”
“You’ll have to tie up your garments,” I said. “And take a good grip on my tunic, and belt. If you let go I can’t save you. I shall need both hands for climbing.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes. No time now. Titles mean nothing to me. Your life, Majister, means only something you wouldn’t understand.”
Vomanus came over and reported a stir below. I looked down.
Trylon Larghos was there, full of life and good cheer, beaming up, confident of victory.
“Let me speak to the Emperor!”
I hurled a rock at him and, stupidly, missed, for he jumped aside. The rock splintered and a chip struck him in the eye, and screeching and spouting blood over his hands as he clasped his face, he collapsed. I went up again.
“Now is the time, Majister.” He was ready. Vomanus and Seg assisted the other old men. We went to the back of the tower and squeezed through the lower windows. Opposite us the forest of petrified bones glittered in the mingled opaz light. We began that climb down the walls. The Emperor hung on my back a dead weight. I watched a Fristle let go and scream his way to the ground, landing in a red puddle, and I cursed the fool for betraying what we were doing.
We slid, slipped, and scraped our way down. In the song that has been made of the fight at The Dragon’s Bones, the tempo becomes mocking here, talking of the loss of skin, the sweat in our eyes, the ripped fingernails, and the blood-streaks down the ruined walls. But that is the Kregan way. They often mock where their emotions run deep.
We reached the floor of the clearing and at once we started for the bones opposite. I thought we would make it.
“Go on, Majister! I will take the rear — just in case.”
They ran on, a clump of old men, halflings, and Bowmen. I found Seg at my side, and Vomanus at the other. All our weapons were caked with blood. I spoke viciously.
“Go on, you two! Stick with the Emperor.”
Vomanus said, “You have been giving us orders very freely, Dray. Now, I think, we will disobey you.”
Seg said, “You go with the Emperor, Dray, if you like.”
Comrades.
We would do it. We were almost there.
A great swirling flood of mercenaries burst around the shattered corner of the tower and raced across the dust toward us. Many races and species were there, all thirsting for our blood. I could hear their shrill shrieks of triumph.
“Run, Majister!” I roared. “Run, by Vox, run for the sake of your daughter.”
He half turned to look back, and I waved my rapier at him and yelled: “I didn’t come here to rescue you! But you’re rescued now! Get in among the bones and you’re safe!
Then we three, Seg, Vomanus, and I, turned to face the death running so swiftly upon us.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A great song has been made of the fight at The Dragon’s Bones, but I will not give you its title. It runs to a
