The Illearth War Read online

  His face throbbed painfully, but he ignored it.

  He kept himself still while he thought.

  This long after the vortex, he reasoned, all his allies were either dead or gone. If the vortex and the birds had not killed them, they had been swept from the ruins by Fleshharrower’s army. So they could not help him. He did not know how much of that army had stayed behind in the masterplace.

  And he could not see. He was vulnerable until daylight. Only the darkness protected him; he could not defend himself.

  His first reaction was to remain where he was, and pray that he was not discovered. But he recognized the futility of that plan. At best, it would only postpone his death. When dawn came, he would still be alone against an unknown number of enemies. No, his one chance was to sneak out of the city now and lose himself in the Wastes. There he might find a gully or hole in which to hide.

  That escape was possible, barely possible, because he had one advantage; none of Fleshharrower’s creatures except the ur-viles could move through the ruins at night as well as he. And the Raver would not have left ur-viles behind. They were too valuable. If Troy could remember his former skills—his sense of ambience, his memory for terrain—he would be able to navigate the city.

  He would have to rely on his hearing to warn him of enemies.

  He began by sliding his sword quietly into its scabbard. Then he started groping his way over the hot sand. He needed to verify where he was, and knew only one way to do it.

  Nearby his hands found a patch of ground that felt burned. The dirt which stuck to his fingers reeked of attar. And in the patch, he located Ruel’s twisted body. His sense of touch told him that Ruel was badly charred. The dark bird must have caught fire when it died, and burned away, leaving the Bloodguard’s corpse behind.

  The touch of that place nauseated him, and he backed away from it. He was sweating heavily. Sweat stung his burns. The night was hot; sunset had brought no relief to the ruins. Folding his arms over his stomach, he climbed to his feet.

  Standing unsteadily in the open, he tried to clear his mind of Ruel and the bird. He needed to remember how to deal with blindness, how to orient himself in the ruins. But he could not determine which way he had come into this open place. Waving his arms before him, he went in search of a wall.

  His feet distrusted the ground—he could not put them down securely—and he moved awkwardly. His sense of balance had deserted him. His face felt raw, and sweat seared his eye sockets. But he clenched his concentration, and measured the distance.

  In twenty yards, he reached a wall. He touched it at an angle, promptly squared himself to it, then moved along it. He needed a gap which would permit him to touch both sides of the wall. Any discrepancy in temperature between the sides would tell him his directions.

  After twenty more yards, he arrived in a corner. Turning at right angles, he followed this new wall. He kept himself parallel to it by brushing the stone with his fingers. Shortly he stumbled into some rubble, and found an entryway.

  The wall here was thick, but he could touch its opposite sides without stretching his arms. Both sides felt very warm, but he thought he discerned a slightly higher temperature on the side facing back into the open space. That direction was west, he reasoned; the afternoon sun would have heated the west side of a wall.

  Now he had to decide which way to go.

  If he went east, he would be less likely to meet enemies. Since they had not already found him, they might be past him, and their search would move from east to west after the Warward. But if any chance of help from his friends or Mehryl remained, it would be on the west side.

  The dilemma seemed to have no solution. He found himself shaking his head and moaning through his teeth. At once, he stuffed his throat with silence. He decided to move west toward Mehryl. The added risk was preferable to a safe escape eastward—an escape which would leave him alone in the Southron Wastes, without food or water or a mount.

  He leaned against the unnatural heat of the wall for a few moments, breathing deeply to steady himself. Then he stood up, grasped his sense of direction with all the concentration he could muster, and started walking straight out into the ruined hall.

  His progress was slow. The uncertainty of his steps made him stagger repeatedly away from a true westward line. But he corrected the variations as best he could, and kept going. Without the support of a wall, his balance grew worse at every stride. Before he had covered thirty yards, the floor reeled around him, and he dropped to his knees. He had to clamp his throat shut to keep from whimpering.

  When he regained his feet, he heard quiet laughter—first one voice, then several. It had a cruel sound, as if it were directed at him. It resonated slightly off the walls, so that he could not locate it, but it seemed to come from somewhere ahead.

  He froze where he stood. Helplessly he prayed that the darkness would cover him.

  But a voice shattered that hope. “Look here, brothers,” it said. “A man—alone.” Its utterance was awkward, thick with slavering, but Troy could understand it. He could hear the malice in the low chorus of laughter which answered it.

  Other voices spoke.

  “A man, yes. Slayer take him!”

  “Look. Such pretty clothes. An enemy.”

  “Ha! Look again, fool. That is no man.”

  “He has no eyes.”

  “Is it an ur-vile?”

  “No—a man, I say. A man with no eyes! Here is some sport, brothers.”

  All the voices laughed again.

  Troy did not stop to wonder how the speakers could see him. He turned, started to run back the way he had come.

  At once, they gave pursuit. He could hear the slap of bare feet on stone, the sharp breathing. They overtook him swiftly. Something veered close to him, tripped him. As he fell, the running feet surrounded him.

  “Go gently, brothers. No quick kill. He will be sport for us all.”

  “Do not kill him.”

  “Not kill? I want to kill. Kill and eat.”

  “The Giant will want this one.”

  “After we sport.”

  “Why tell the Giant, brothers? He is greedy.”

  “He takes our meat.”

  “Keep this one for ourselves, yes.”

  “Slayer take the Giant.”

  “His precious ur-viles. When there is danger, men must go first.”

  “Yes! Brothers, we will eat this meat.”

  Troy heaved himself to his feet. Through the rapid chatter of the voices, he heard, go first, and almost fell again. If these creatures were the first of Fleshharrower’s army to enter the masterplace—! But he pushed down the implications of that thought, and snatched out his sword.

  “A sword? Ho ho!”

  “Look, brothers. The man with no eyes wants to play.”

  “Play!”

  Troy heard the lash of a whip; cord flicked around his wrist. It caught and jerked, hauled him from his feet. Strong hands took his sword. Something kicked him in the chest, knocked him backward. But his breastplate protected him.

  One of the voices cried, “Slayer! My foot!”

  “Fool!” came the answer. There was laughter.

  “Kill him!”

  A metallic weapon clattered against his breastplate, fell to the ground. He scrambled for it in the dust, but sudden hands shoved him away. He recoiled and got to his feet again.

  He heard the whistle of the whip, and its cord lashed at his ankles. But this time he did not go down.

  “Do not kill him yet. Where is the sport?”

  “Make him play.”

  “Yes, brothers. Play.”

  “Play for us, man with no eyes.”

  The whip burned around his neck. He staggered under the blow. The bewildering crossfire of voices went on.

  “Play, Slayer take you!”

  “Sport for us!”

  “Why sport? I want meat. Blood—wet meat.”

  “The Giant feeds us sand.”

  “Play,
I say! Are you blind, man with no eyes? Does the sun dazzle you?”

  This gibe was met with loud laughter. But Troy stood still in his dismay. The sun? he thought numbly. Then he had chosen the wrong direction, east instead of west; he had walked right into these creatures. He wanted to scream. But he was past screaming. He could feel the light of his life going out. His hands shook as he tried to straighten his sunglasses.

  “Dear God,” he groaned.

  Numbly, as if he did not know what he was doing, he put his fingers to his lips and gave a shrill whistle.

  The whip coiled around his waist and whirled him to the ground.

  “Play!” the voices shouted raggedly together.

  But when he stumbled to his feet again, he heard the sound of hooves. And a moment later, Mehryl’s whinny cut through the gibbering voices. It touched Troy’s heart like the call of a trumpet. He jerked up his head, and his ears searched, trying to locate the Ranyhyn.

  The voices changed to shouts of hunger as the hooves charged. “Ranyhyn!”

  “Kill it!”

  “Meat!” Hands grabbed Troy. He grappled with a fist that held a knife. But then the noise of hooves rushed close to him. An impact flung his assailant away. He turned, tried to leap onto Mehryl’s back. But he only put himself in Mehryl’s path. The shoulder of the Ranyhyn struck him, knocked him down.

  Then he could hear bare feet leaping to the attack. The whip cracked, knives swished. Mehryl was forced away from him. Hooves skittered on the stone as the Ranyhyn retreated. Howling triumphantly, the creatures gave chase. The sounds receded.

  Troy pushed himself to his feet. His heart thudded in his chest; pain throbbed sharply in his face. The noises of pursuit seemed to indicate that he was being left alone. But he did not move. Concentrating all his attention, he tried to hear over the beat of his pain.

  For a long moment, the open space around him sounded empty, still. He waved his arms, and touched nothing.

  But then he heard a sharp intake of breath.

  He was trembling violently. He wanted to turn and run. But he forced himself to hold his ground. He concentrated, bent all his alertness toward the sound. In the distance, the other creatures had lost Mehryl. They were returning; he could hear them.

  But the near voice hissed, “I kill you. You hurt my foot. Slayer take them! You are my meat.”

  Troy could sense the creature’s approach. It loomed out of the blankness like a faint pressure on his face. The rasp of its breathing grew louder. With every step, he felt its ambience more acutely.

  The tension was excruciating, but he held himself still. He waited. Interminable time passed.

  Suddenly he felt the creature bunching to spring.

  He snatched Manethrall Rue’s cord from his belt, looped it around the neck of his attacker, and jerked as the creature hit him. He put all his strength into the pull. The creature’s leap toppled him, but he clung to the cord, heaved on it. The creature landed on top of him. He threw his weight around, got himself onto the creature. He kept pulling. Now he could feel the limpness of the body under him. But he did not release his hold. Straining on the cord; he banged the creature’s head repeatedly against the stone.

  He was gasping for breath. Dimly he could hear the other creatures charging him.

  He did not release his hold.

  Then power crackled through the air. Flame burst around him. He heard shouts, and the clash of swords. Bowstrings thrummed. Creatures screamed, ran, fell heavily.

  A moment later, hands lifted Troy. Rue’s cord was taken from his rigid fingers. First Haft Amorine cried, “Warmark! Warmark! Praise the Creator, you are safe!” She was weeping with relief. People moved around him. He heard Lord Mhoram say, “My friend, you have led us a merry chase. Without Mehryl’s aid, we would not have found you in time.” The voice came disembodied out of the blankness.

  At first, Troy could not speak. His heart struggled through a crisis. It made him gasp so hard that he could barely stand. He sounded as if he were trying to sob.

  “Warmark,” Amorine said, “what has happened to you?”

  “Sun,” he panted, “is—the sun—shining?” The effort of articulation seemed to impale his heart.

  “Warmark? Ah, Warmark! What has been done to you?”

  “The sun!” he retched out. He was desperate to insist, but he could only stamp his foot uselessly.

  “The sun stands overhead,” Mhoram answered. “We have survived the vortex and its creatures. But now Fleshharrower’s army enters Doriendor Corishev. We must depart swiftly.”

  “Mhoram,” Troy coughed hoarsely. “Mhoram.” Stumbling forward, he fell into the Lord’s arms.

  Mhoram held him in a comforting grip. Without a word, the Lord supported him until some of his pain passed, and he began to breathe more easily. Then Mhoram said quietly, “I see that you slew one of the Despiser’s birds. You have done well, my friend. Lord Callindrill and I remain. Perhaps seventy of the Bloodguard survive. First Haft Amorine has preserved a handful of her warriors. After the passing of the vortex, all the Ranyhyn returned. They saved many horses. My friend, we must go.”

  Some of Mhoram’s steadiness reached Troy, and he began to regain control of himself. He did not want to be a burden to the Lord. Slowly, he drew back, stood on his own. Covering his burned forehead with his hands as if he were trying to hide his eyelessness, he said, “I’ve got to tell you the rest of my plan.”

  “May it wait? We must depart at once.”

  “Mhoram,” Troy moaned brokenly, “I can’t see.”

  TWENTY: Garroting Deep

  Two days later—shortly after noon on the day before the dark of the moon—Lord Mhoram led the Warward to Cravenhaw, the southmost edge of Garroting Deep. In noon heat, the army had swung stumbling and lurching like a dying man around the foothills, and had marched northward to a quivering halt before the very lips of the fatal Deep. The warriors stood on a wide, grassy plain—the first healthy green they had seen since leaving the South Plains. Ahead was the Forest. Perhaps half a league away on either side, east and west, were mountains, steep and forbidding peaks like the jaws of the Deep. And behind was the army of moksha Fleshharrower.

  The Giant-Raver drove his forces savagely. Despite the delay at Doriendor Corishev, he was now no more than two leagues away.

  That knowledge tightened Lord Mhoram’s cold, weary dread. He had so little time in which to attempt Warmark Troy’s plan. From this position, there were no escapes and no hopes except the one Troy had envisioned. If Mhoram were not successful—successful soon!—the Warward would be crushed between the Raver and Garroting Deep.

  Yet he doubted that he could succeed at all, regardless of the time at his disposal. In a year or a score of years, he might still fail. The demand was so great— Even the vortex of trepidation had not made him feel so helpless.

  Yet he shuddered when he thought of the vortex. Although Troy had saved virtually all the Warward, the men and women who had remained in the masterplace had paid heavily for their survival. Something in Lord Callindrill had been damaged by Fleshharrower’s attack. The strain of combat against bitter ill had humiliated him in some way, taught him a deep distrust of himself. He had not been able to resist the fear. Now his clear soft eyes were clouded, pained. When he melded his thoughts with Lord Mhoram, he shared knowledge and concern, but not strength; he no longer believed in his strength.

  In her own way, First Haft Amorine suffered similarly. During the Raver’s onslaught, she had held the collapsing remains of her command together by the simple force of her courage. She had taken the terror of her warriors upon herself. Every time one of them fell under the power of the vortex, or died in the talons of the birds, she had tightened her grip on the survivors. And after that, when the sirocco had passed, she began a frantic search for Warmark Troy. The perverted, manlike creatures that rushed into the ruins—some with claws for fingers, others with cleft faces and limbs covered with suckers, still others with extra eyes or arms,
all of them warped in some way by the power of the Stone—steadily brought more and more of the city under their control. But she fought her way through them as if they were mere shades to haunt her while she hunted. The idea of following Mehryl was hers.

  But the Warmark’s blindness was too much for her. The cause of it was clear. The slain bird’s corrosive blood had ravaged his face, and that burning had undone the Land’s gift of sight. Neither of the Lords had any hurtloam, rillinlure, or other arts of healing with which to counteract the hurt. When she understood Troy’s plight, she appeared to lose herself; independent will deserted her. Until she rejoined the Warward, she followed Lord Mhoram’s requests and instructions blankly, like a puppet from which all authority had evaporated. And when she saw Hiltmark Quaan again, she transferred herself to him. As she told him of Troy’s plan, she was so numb that she did not even falter.

  The Warmark himself had said nothing more after describing his final strategy. He wrapped himself in his blindness and allowed Mhoram to place him on Mehryl’s back. He did not ask about Fleshharrower’s army, though only the speed of the Ranyhyn saved him and his companions from being trapped in the city. Despite the scream of frustration which roared after the riders, he carried himself like an invalid who had turned his face to the wall.

  And Lord Mhoram also suffered. After the battle of the masterplace, fatigue and dread had forced tenacious fingers into the crevices and crannies of his soul, so that he could not shake them off. Yet he helped the First Haft and Lord Callindrill as best he could. He knew that only time and victory could heal their wounds; but he absorbed those parts of their burdens which came within his reach, and gave back to them all the consolation he possessed.

  There was nothing he could do to ease the shock which Amorine’s report of the Warmark’s final plan gave Quaan. As she spoke, the Hiltmark’s concern for her gave way to a livid horror on behalf of the warriors. His expression flared, and he erupted, “Madness! Every man and woman will be slain! Troy, what has become of you? By the Seven! Troy—Warmark!”—he hesitated awkwardly before uttering his thought “Do you rave? My friend,” he breathed gripping Troy’s shoulders, “how can you meditate such folly?”