Snowclaw wrenched the ax out and examined the blade, running his thumb delicately over it. He looked at the armorer sharply. “This’ll do for me. How about taking care of my friends, and we’ll be on our way.”
Face paling, the armorer nodded. “Yes, sir. Anything you say.”
“And get some clothes for the lady, here.”
“Immediately, sir. Will there be anything else, sir?”
“Do it.”
“I will fetch the seamstress. She will be glad to come.”
“Fine. And if you don’t come back, I’ll come looking.”
The armorer swallowed. “I shall return at once, sir.”
Outer Curtain Wall — Southeast Tower
From an embrasured window Melydia looked out at the long line of belfries lumbering toward the inner curtain wall. The assault was going well, but she knew Incarnadine had yet to act. She was prepared for anything he might do. She had been preparing for years.
She watched as siege engines hurled boulders, some as big as a house, over the inner curtain wall, there to crash into the forebuildings and other structures of the ward. A few stones fell short, bounding off the wall or smashing into the crenelated battlements, to the dismay of the few defenders who manned them. The engines were working well. They would not have worked at all were it not for Melydia’s magical assistance. Each engine was under a spell that enabled it to violate those natural mechanical laws which ordinarily would have precluded handling such massive projectiles. By rights, a trebuchet’s throwing arm should crack like a toothpick under the weight of stones that size. Even if the strain could be borne, mundane engines simply lacked the power to throw these projectiles, or any projectiles, over a thirty-story wall. Only magical ones could do the trick.
The spell was a difficult and subtle one, but it worked.
She heard the clack of hard-leather soles coming up the spiral staircase behind her. She turned to see Vorn mounting the landing.
“There you are, my lady. I had wondered …”
She smiled and turned back to the window. Vorn came up beside her and gazed out.
“The lookouts report nothing brewing,” Vorn told her. “Of course, that means little. Incarnadine is sure to play his hand now.”
She nodded. “He will.”
They watched. The moving towers, now very close to the battlements of the high inner wall, were almost completely manned. Archers, occupying the topmost platforms, were still keeping the walls clear of defenders. Incarnadine’s castle guards weren’t showing their heads. The Guardsmen had chosen not to engage the invaders at close quarters along the wall; they were outnumbered and they knew it. There were fifteen belfries and five thousand men to flow from them and spill over into Castle Perilous proper. No, the mopping up would proceed from tower to tower all the way around the perimeter until the entire inner curtain wall was secured — slow, dirty work, but it must be done. And it would be done.
“Have you slept?” Vorn asked. When Melydia gave her head a shake, he said, “You must be exhausted.”
“After taking on six thousand soldiers in one night? Why would I be?”
Vorn was taken somewhat aback. A voluntary grunt of laughter escaped him, though he did not smile.
Melydia did. “You are shocked by my coarse humor,” she said.
Vorn’s mouth softened. “A bit. Forgive me.”
“No, it was inappropriate. I must beg pardon.”
“I shouldn’t have been shocked. Though you are a lady, you ought not to be judged by the usual proprieties applying to women of quality. You can’t be. They are much too limiting. You are an individual of power, and …”
She turned slightly, one eye peeking around the edge of her blue headdress. “And?”
“I admire that.” He smiled.
“In a woman?”
“In you.”
Her hand, wrist hung with folds of her white cloak, came up to caress his beard. He seized it and kissed her palm.
“Melydia,” he said.
“In the midst of a battle, Vorn?”
“In the middle of Hell, if the occasion warrants.”
She made to withdraw her hand, and he reluctantly let it go.
“Notwithstanding your jest,” he said, “you must be weary beyond measure. To have cast six thousand spells in one night —”
“Fourteen hours without stop. I could barely raise my hand.”
“Fourteen —” Vorn was awed. “Indeed, I did not know. I grew weary and retired shortly after you started.” He considered it. “Even so, it does not seem sufficient time.”
“It wasn’t. It gave me but seconds to effect each one. An ancillary spell was needed, one to facilitate my working unnaturally fast — and another to prevent me from collapsing. That spell yet sustains me, though it grows weaker by the minute.”
He clucked. “Must each soldier have been done individually? Is there not such a thing as a blanket spell?”
“Yes, but a blanket thrown over six thousand covers not many.”
“I see.” Vorn’s eyebrows drew together in a worried frown. “But will it work? Could any spell be sufficient to fend off Incarnadine’s evil? It is said he is no mere mortal.”
“He may be mortal. That is, he may one day die. But he has lived some three hundred years.”
“I have heard that, too, though I scarce believe it.”
“You may believe it. All the Haplodites have been long-lived.”
Arms akimbo, Vorn turned, paced away from the window and stopped. He brooded for a moment, then wheeled slowly around, his gaze on the floor. “Against magic so powerful …” he began.
“We have fought and have nearly prevailed.” She went to him, took his hands and pressed them to her breast. “Have you had cause to doubt me up till now?”
“No.”
“Come.”
She led him across the semicircular room to the staircase. They mounted it, she leading him by the hand. They went up six turns until they came to a hatchway at the top. Vorn threw the hatch aside and they climbed out onto the turret. Stepping over the dead body of a Guardsman overlooked by the clean-up detail, they went to the battlement.
“Look,” she said, her hand sweeping across the scene. “Walls thirty stories high, a keep whose upper floors are sometimes hid in cloud. Walls within walls, towers that touch the sky, black adamantine stone immune to the elements — a fortress of magic and power unimaginable — and you, Vorn, are about to prevail against it. History has never known such a siege. Future generations will scarce credit it. You will be legend.” Her voice rose over the din of shouting soldiers, the whoosh of the catapults, the crack of a thousand crossbows and the ping and clatter of bolts striking stone. Come here.”
She lead him to the south side of the turret.
“We are a thousand feet above the plain.”
Vorn looked out across the dark lands of the Pale. Gray-black mountains hove in the distance, ringing a valley of dirt and dust. Here and there rude farm huts dotted the terrain, and miserable, near-barren fields made haphazard patterns.
So poor a land, Vorn thought. But it was a fleeting thought.
“Was ever a fortress more inaccessible, more invulnerable? You levitated an army a thousand feet straight up.”
“There was no other way,” Vorn said. “Else they would have picked us off one by one as we marched up the trail.”
“You did it by the power of your will.”
The power of my will …
The thought crowded into his mind, nudging doubt aside.
“You did it, Vorn. Not me.”
His chest swelled, then fell slowly, a doubting cast returning to his eyes.
“But you …”