Longshanks stared at him, startled. Then he turned to Solutre with a grin.
The invasion was a disaster—for the invaders. With their lords threatening and blustering, they came marching down a rubble-strewn avenue, but they eyed the buildings to either side with great trepidation shaking in their boots.
“Cowards! Poltroons!” shouted one magician, following behind his troops. He shook a fist at the empty window to either side of him. “Come out and show yourselves! You can’t hide from us forever!”
Half a dozen bowmen ducked from behind a corner and loosed a flight of arrows. A sergeant saw them and shouted, “Shields up!” The soldiers obeyed and were rewarded with the sounds of arrows thudding into wood and leather.
“See?” the sergeant bellowed. “They can’t hurt you! After them!”
The soldiers cheered and charged.
Around the corner they went, just in time to see the last of the bowmen ducking through a hole in a wall. “There they go!” the sergeant shouted, pointing.
“What’s on the other side of that wall?” a guard asked nervously.
“Nothing, you fool! Can’t you see the daylight? It’s just a shortcut—they were too lazy to go around, so they knocked a hole in it! Come on, men!”
The troopers whooped and ran after him.
Through the hole they charged—then skidded to a halt as they saw the blank wall ahead of them. Whirling, they saw a wall on each side, too. They turned back to the hole—and found it filled with bowmen, arrows leveled. Each had a wyvern on his shoulder.
“Lay down your arms and we’ll let you live.” The leader’s grin held a hint of madness. “Don’t think you have a choice, either. Look up.”
“Not all of us!” the sergeant kept his glare on the bowmen. “Roark, tell me what you see!”
“Windows, Sergeant,” the trooper said nervously, “way up high, and every one has a madman with a sling.”
“We’re not mad!” the leader snapped. “We do have some odd talents, though. Lay down your arms, or we’ll loose our pets—and call in our ancestors.”
The troopers shuddered but the sergeant chose bluster. “We’ve a magician lord only a step behind us, and he’ll make your wyverns into fireballs if you dare loose them!”
“Your lord has his hands full at the moment,” the spokesman said with a gloating smile. “He’s fighting the ghosts of three magicians who have been dead a hundred years—and learning more about magic every day. You’re on your own, lads.”
A rock clattered on the tiles of the courtyard. The soldier nearest shied away.
“Stop that!” the leader called sharply. “We’re still giving them the chance to surrender!”
“We surrender, we surrender!” the sergeant declared in disgust. He threw down his pike. His troopers imitated him on the instant and the courtyard filled with the clatter of falling arms. “Kick them over here,” the bowman said.
The soldiers kicked their pikes and halberds into a pile near the hole in the wall.
“Good. Now back away.”
They did, and a couple of city dwellers ducked in through the hole, gathered up the weapons, and carried them out “This is your prison now,” the bowman said. “Don’t try to get out until we tell you. Your guards will be watching you with stones to hand. You won’t see them, but they’ll be there.”
For emphasis, a stone cracked into the pavement two yards in front of the sergeant. It bounced several times. He saw how it had split the flagstone.
The bowmen stepped back and a rusty iron grid slid over the hole in the wall—obviously two old gates welded together. “It might be weak,” Roark muttered in the sergeant’s ear. “We might be able to break it.”
A stone whizzed through the air and struck one of the bars. Roark shivered. “Those boys throw straight.”
“That one was a girl,” the soldier behind him said. “Pretty ugly, too.”
Roark glanced up to see for himself, but the window was empty.
“Don’t think I want to take the chance of going near those bars,” the sergeant said. “Too bad, boys—looks like we’re here for the duration.”
“Yeah, too bad.” Roark sighed. “I’m really going to miss the scrimmage.”
“Yeah, so am I,” another trooper said happily. “Who’s got the cards?”
Two streets away, another score of soldiers crouched under their shields while a constant stream of rocks rained down on them. Three of them were covering their magic-lord and wincing at the occasional pebble that bounced up to strike their shins.
“They have to run out of rocks sometime!” the sergeant called.
“No we don’t!” a voice shrilled above him. “We’ve got whole buildings stuffed with stones!” It broke into an eerie laugh that echoed down the concrete canyon, joined by many other cackling voices.
A soldier shuddered. “It’s bad enough being ambushed, but ambushed by madmen is worse!”
“Smite them with fire, my lord!” the sergeant implored.
“I can’t!” the magician snapped. “Someone’s dousing the flames as quickly as I start them.”
The sergeant blinked. “Who?”
“I’m not sure he’s alive anymore,” the magician admitted. All his men shuddered. One asked in a quaver, “What happens if we’re still stuck here at night?”
“Lord Kraken will call ghosts of his own to match these!” the magician blustered.
The soldiers took that in silence, suspecting that there were a great many more city ghosts than the number Lord Kraken could call.
Suddenly the drumming of stones ceased.
The soldiers looked up, stupefied. Warily, the sergeant peeked out around the edge of his shield. Sure enough, the bombardment had stopped.
“We’ll let you go,” the shrill voice skirled, “if you march back the way you came and keep marching till you’re home.”
“And if we don’t?” the magician called truculently. “Then we’ll keep you here till we need you.”
“Need us?” The sergeant stared. “For what? And how long?”
“Until we run out of meat,” the voice called back. “That won’t take long—we can’t hunt while we’re pinning you here.” The soldiers put two and two together and shuddered.
“All right, we’ll retreat!” the magician shouted. “But you’ll regret this! I’ll be back with five times this number!”
“We’ll look forward to it,” the voice called. “Bring plenty of food—you’ll be here a while.”
As dusk fell, the cellar window opened and a waterskin came flying through. The soldiers trapped inside caught it, blinking in surprise. “Thanks!” the sergeant called.
“We’re nothing if not hospitable,” a gruff voice answered. “Watch out for the food, now!”
The men jumped back as three huge sacks sailed in, one after another.
“You’ll have to mix it with the water and bake it yourselves,” the gruff voice growled. “Just build the fire close to the window so the smoke can get out.”
“Uh … right…” the sergeant said. “How long you planning to keep us here?”
“As long as you want,” the barbarian answered. “You can go anytime, as long as you go and don’t come back.”
“We can’t,” the sergeant said heavily. “Our lord won’t let us.”
“Oh, I think he’ll be ready by morning,” the barbarian answered. “He’s arguing with our ancestors, and they have his ghosts outnumbered three to one already.”
16
“Already?” the sergeant asked in a hollow voice.
“There’re more ghosts coming,” the barbarian explained.
The sergeant shuddered and looked around the clammy cellar. All of a sudden it seemed very cozy.