There were still a few fires burning, and a few men around them. Most were preparing wholesale breakfasts. Evidently El Murid meant to start early. No sentry was nearby.
He heaved upward. Part of the wall gave way, dribbling down with what seemed to him an incredible racket. The stockade was constructed of materials no better than sticks and stones mortared together with moistened clay. The clay was now dry, becoming powdery. He scrabbled for another handhold, rolled across the top and dropped onto a rickety catwalk, slithered into a shadow. He remained as still as stone then, awaiting an alarm and forming a mental map he would not forget in the heat of action.
No one noticed the noise he'd made.
How soon would the sentries be missed? Surely not long. Ten minutes? That might be too tight. He had to locate the Disciple before he could strike.
Before he moved on he assumed the camouflage of a minor spell that would avert the unsuspecting eye, making him effectively invisible till he did something blatant.
He dropped to the ground, stole along the wall till he could move into the camp in the shelter of tent shadows. He harkened to his weakling shaghûn's senses, trying to locate the Disciple through the aura of his amulet. Only a vague sense of direction came, centerward. He needed no sorcery to guess that. He wished he'd had more time with his instructors, had been able to study with the masters, and had attained a higher level of proficiency. But there had been so many things to learn, and so little time for study...
There! That way. The throb of the amulet was strongest thither.
He moved like a panther, shadow in shadow. That romantic undercurrent welled up. He imagined himself more than what he was, nominated himself a mighty avenger. Dangerous as his undertaking was, he was not afraid. Fright did not occur to him. His fearlessness was the fearlessness of folly.
The camp center was set off from the remainder by a twenty-yard width of barren earth. Beyond stood a half dozen tents guarded by twenty Invincibles. These sentries were posted too close to slip past.
He could not pick out the tent occupied by the Disciple. Time fled. Any minute the absent sentries would be missed. He had to do something.
He made the lilac magic, sent several of the tiny, deadly balls hunting. And kept sending them as fast as he could create them.
There was no other way. There would be an alarm, and an alert, and mad confusion. In it he might get close enough to do the deed.
An Invincible shouted. Not one of those touched by a violet pellet, of course. Those would make no sound again, ever.
Still creating and releasing the killing pellets, Haroun crept forward... and found himself face to face with a giant in white. A giant not misled by his feeble spell of concealment. A scimitar howled down. Haroun hurled himself aside, stumbled into a low tent, tripped, scrambled into a shadow, crouched, stared back at the Invincible. The man lost him, but only for an instant. Scimitar raised, he charged.
Haroun drew his blade.
The camp was coming to life. Men shouted questions. In the circle guarded by Invincibles—a dozen of whom lay dead—tent flaps whipped open. Officers demanded reports. Haroun spotted a man who had to be el Nadim. He tried to unleash another lilac bead. But the giant was upon him again.
He blocked a stroke so strong his whole arm went numb.
The Invincible left himself open to a counterstroke, but Haroun hadn't the strength to deliver it.
Another blow fell. Haroun rolled with it. Again he could not take advantage of an opportunity. His weapon had been forced too far out of position.
Men shouted at his opponent, who shouted back.
The third stroke was as overwhelming as its predecessors. This time Haroun kicked as his blade was driven down and away. His toe connected with the giant's knee. The man staggered. He was slow getting his guard up. Haroun struck before he did so.
He whirled and ran a short way, banging bewildered warriors out of his way. He dived into a shadow behind a tent. The tent was unoccupied. He slithered under the fabric's edge.
The uproar grew. There were cries that the Wahlig was attacking. Men rushed to the stockade. As many ran hither and thither in panic. A very few sought the interloper who had slain the Disciple's guards.
The halloo moved away. Haroun peeped outside, saw no one. He crept out and slid from shadow to shadow, toward the Disciple's tent. He knew which it was now.
Behind him flames rose. In their panic some of the enemy had scattered a fire. Some tents had caught. The blaze was spreading.
The fallen Invincibles had been replaced. Haroun cursed. There was no way, now, that he could deliver the stroke he had been anticipating all day.
He would have to use the Power. He hadn't wanted to do that. He wanted the Disciple to see death coming, wanted the man to look into his eyes and recognize the boy from Al Rhemish. Wanted him to know who as well as why.
The lilac killer would not do. It would take the nearest Invincible, not a man cowering inside a tent. It had to be something else. His arsenal of petty magicks contained little that was apt. Again he cursed the chain of circumstance that had prevented his achieving his full potential as a shaghûn.
He selected a spell that would induce the symptoms of typhoid, ran through the chants softly, visualized the El Murid he recalled from Al Rhemish. He loosed the spell.
A cry of agony answered it.
Some Invincibles rushed to their master. And some rushed toward Haroun.
"What the hell is going on?" Haaken asked.
"I don't know," Bragi replied. "But he's sure got them stirred up."
"Maybe we ought to help. Maybe if they think they're under attack he can get out in the confusion."
Bragi doubted that. He had written Haroun off. The decision he faced was whether or not to rush back to el Aswad in hopes he hadn't been missed. It had to be too late. Might as well do some good here.
Some of the enemy were fleeing the camp. Within, the fires were spreading. Horses were making panic noises.
"All right. Let's go. Harass the ones running away. You guys with the bows. Shoot a few over the wall."
Alarms awakened Megelin Radetic. Groggy, he staggered from his cubicle, his seldom used sword dragging. A night attack? He hadn't anticipated that. It wasn't to the Disciple's advantage. The man merely needed to wear the defense down with hammerings like yesterday's.
He paused, listened. Plenty of people running around yelling, but no thunder. No crash of lightning striking the fortress. Maybe it wasn't an attack.
What, then?
He reached the north court to find it aboil with men rushing out the gate. He grabbed a soldier. "What's happening?" The man pulled away. So did the next he caught. Nobody wanted to spare a moment. Radetic dragged his weary bones to the ramparts.
The Disciple's camp was ablaze. Men were scurrying everywhere. Animals were stampeding with the men. There was fighting. The defenders of el Aswad were falling on their foes in a great disorderly rush. The anthill simile occurred to him. "Trite," he murmured.
It took Megelin just seconds to guess how it had started. "Haroun! You fool!" He panicked. His own Haroun... He practically threw himself off the wall in his haste to get down there.
The observer within was amused. The boy isn't your child, it said. He's only on loan to you.
Even so, his heart was ripped by fear that the boy had destroyed himself in some romantic scheme for rescuing his father's fortunes.
Bragi kept his men close together, unbroken by the human stampede. Two score bodies lay around them. The enemy was easy in this state.
A rabble from the fortress arrived, as disorganized as the foe, but with blood in their eyes. The area became a slaughter yard. Bragi urged his men toward the gateway.