“Nobody move, or the next one takes off a head,” came a shout from the same direction as the shot, followed by hurried footsteps.
“Don’t move or speak,” the Irishman hissed in Old Norse. Bugge nodded.
“Oh, Jesus, it’s Duffy!” exclaimed a voice Duffy recognized after a moment as Bluto’s. “Just what the hell are you doing, you troublesome son of a bitch?” Bluto hobbled up, accompanied by a burly guard who carried a fresh matchlock and blew vigilantly on the glowing end of the cord.
“That’s a real quick-trigger man you’ve got there, Bluto,” Duffy observed mildly. The ball had struck so close to him that it was clear the man hadn’t intended to miss.
“He was following orders, damn it,” snapped Bluto. “All the sentries have been alerted that a spy was sighted and then lost in the city a few hours ago, and are ordered to stop anyone trying to go over the wall, and bring them, if still alive, to von Salm. I know you’re not a spy, Duff, but I don’t have any choice—you’ll have to come with me.”
In the unsteady moonlight Duffy’s eyes measured the distance from his right hand to the gun barrel; with a sideways lunge he might be able to knock it out of line. “I’m sorry, Bluto,” he said. “I can’t.”
“It wasn’t a suggestion, Brian,” the hunchback rasped. “It was an order. To put it bluntly, you’re under arrest.” The sentry took a step back, putting him out of Duffy’s reach.
The Irishman heard the first notes of the bells of St. Stephen’s tolling eleven o’clock. “Look, Bluto,” he said urgently, “I have to go out there. A sorcerous attack is building up out there on the plain, and if I, and my party, aren’t out there when it starts, then things won’t go too well for Vienna. You must have seen enough in the last six months to know that magic is playing a part in this struggle. I swear to you, as your oldest friend, who once saved your life and who carries a certain obligation in trust, that I have to go. And I will. You can permit it or you can have him shoot me in the back.” He turned to Bugge and gestured toward the rope. The Viking stepped up into the crenel, seized the rope and leaned outward, walking down the outside of the wall.
There was a scuffle and thud, and Duffy looked quickly around. Bluto was holding the long gun by the barrel with one hand, and with the other arm was lowering the unconscious sentry to the surface of the catwalk. He looked up unhappily. “I hope I didn’t hit him too hard. I don’t know anything about any magic—but go, damn you. I’ve bought you some time with my neck.”
Duffy started to thank him, but the hunchback was walking away, and not looking back. Soon all the northmen had descended the rope, and Duffy climbed up and stood between the two bulky stone merlons.
As he looped the line behind his thigh and over his shoulder he sniffed the night air and wondered what quality had changed. Had a persistent sound ceased? A prevalent odor disappeared? Then he noticed the stillness of the air. That’s what it is, he thought uneasily. It’s stopped, the breeze that has blown from the west these past two weeks.
Chapter Twenty-two
THEY CARRIED THE KING over the bridge to the far bank of the canal, lifted him aboard the old ship, got in themselves and then untied all lines. Duffy and three of the northmen used long oars to push the ship away from the bank and into the current, and within a few minutes the high-prowed ship was gliding between the dim, masonry-crowned banks of the Donau, silent under the stark crucifix of its mast. The night air was cold, and smelled of wet streets; Duffy breathed it deeply, savoring the stagnant taint of the lapping water. The northmen stood at the rails, peering ahead into the darkness.
The rains had swelled the Danube, and the offshoot Donau Canal was moving swiftly. Duffy had been afraid they’d have to row to make any speed, with the unavoidable clatter of the oarlocks, but all that proved to be necessary was an oar-butt shoved forcefully against a bank from time to time to keep them from running aground. Soon the high bulk of the city wall had slipped past on their starboard side, and only stunted willows bordered the canal.
Standing to the right of the upswept prow, Duffy carefully scanned the southern bank, trying to look beyond the dark foreground foliage to the silent group he knew was out there. Do they see us? he wondered. Not likely. We’re making no noise, they have no reason to believe we even know they’re out here, and it’s only from the west they’ll be looking for possible attacks.
After about a third of a mile the canal began to curve gently to the north, as if prematurely anticipating its eventual re-merging with the Danube, which didn’t occur until several miles further south. If Merlin’s, wall-watchers know their business, the Irishman thought, Ibrahim’s party is now due south of us. He turned, hissed to the northmen and signalled them to put in at the southern bank. This wasn’t difficult, since the current had been trying for ten minutes to run them aground on that side; the men at the starboard rail simply stopped bracing the oars against the canal-edge, and within a minute the keel raked the mud and the ship canted over toward the bank, stuck fast.
Duffy stepped across the slanting deck to the starboard rail, leaning backward so as not to pitch right over into the canal. Aurelianus came up beside him. “That jar didn’t do the King any good,” the wizard whispered accusingly. “But he’s ready to be carried to the bank.”
“Good. Now listen, I’m going to go over there. When I wave, send Bugge and two others. We’ll make sure it’s safe. Then when I wave again, the rest of you carry the King across. Have you got that?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. See you soon, I trust.”
The Irishman carefully lowered himself over the side, clenching his teeth at the bitter chill of the water swirling around his thighs, and waded to the humped, tree-furred bank. Half peering in the darkness and half groping, he found a quiet way up and then waved back at the ship. Soon three of the northmen were crawling up the muddy slope beside him, shivering and rubbing their legs. Beyond the willows the landscape they faced was nothing but a black horizon of uncertain distance.
A flash of blue light pricked the darkness ahead for a moment, then was cut off as if a door had been shut.
Over the splash and slurry of the watér through the reeds Duffy now fancied he could faintly hear chanting voices and the rushing of great wings, and he was suddenly afraid to look up for fear the tattered clouds would begin to form malevolent Oriental faces. The canal at our backs, he thought, connects with the Danube, which stretches far south; has some vast white serpent crawled north along the riverbed from Turkish regions to suck us up now from behind?
Fearfully, he turned to look—and saw in the dim moonlight the wide-eyed, terror-stark faces of the three Vikings. They must have seen or heard something I missed, Duffy thought, feeling his own fear spiral higher at this corroboration; or else, he thought suddenly, we’re all responding to the same thing, which is not an object or a sound, but simply the atmosphere of outré menace that hangs in the still air here like a vapor.
That’s it, he thought with sudden conviction. Ibrahim is doing this to us. He’s set up some kind of wizardly fear-wall around himself to drive away anyone who might interrupt him. With the thought, the Irishman was able to unfasten the terror from his mind and push it away, like a man holding a snake by its throat at arm’s length. He forced a soft chuckle and turned to Bugge. “It’s a trick,” he whispered to the trembling northman. “Damn it, it’s magic, it’s only a fright-mask hung over the door to keep children from barging in!”