That old bastard was half-spook.
LXXIV
Raven came to slowly, shaky and disoriented. Memory of a flashing boot and savage impact. Realization that he had a ferocious headache. That his hip had begun to ache. That he was so cold he had begun to feel warm in his extremities.
A moment of panic. He tried to thrash around, found his limbs only vaguely cooperative. Worse panic before the onset of reason.
He wriggled his way out of the snow, got to his feet carefully. He felt himself over, scraped frozen blood off his face. The bastard had got him good. Almost had to admire those guys, the way they were hanging in there against the whole world.
Painfully, he dragged himself out of the ditch, stood on wobbly legs looking around, the old hip wound gnawing. Things had changed. There were monsters in the sky and witch fires flaring in the distance.
The Limper had come. Darling would be in the middle of it. And he wasn't there.
She would think he had run out again.
Raven reached the center of excitement in time to witness Gossamer's fall. Everyone seemed to relax after the incident. The Limper must not be a threat right now.
The crowd came down off the wall. Soldiers brought horses for Exile and Brigadier Wildbrand. A platoon of Nightstalkers fell in around them and they started moving north. Raven wondered what the hell was happening. It looked like Darling and Exile had cut a deal.
He could not catch them now, wobbly as he was.
The twins had their heads together. They threw dark looks after the departing company. They radiated a stench of wickedness about to break loose.
Better stick with them.
LXXV
When the monsters began sliding across the sky Smeds suffered an attack of caution. Able to think of nowhere else to run, he headed back to the ditch.
The guy he had kicked was still there, twitching once in a while. He backed off and watched, waiting to see what the guy would do. After a while the guy woke up, dragged himself out, and tottered off. Good. Now he had a place to wait for Fish. He went over and around and entered the culvert from the northern end, passed through, and sat down to wait.
Fish showed up a forever later, standing over there on the footbridge. He didn't have the other blue bag. Damn. Smeds whistled just loud enough to carry to Fish, waved cautiously.
"What happened?" he asked when Fish arrived. "Where's the other bag?"
Fish explained.
Smeds told his story.
Fish said, "We need to get out of here, then. Let's get the stuff. We might be able to get out one of the breaches if there's any more excitement. With the spike up for grabs we can count on that."
They got the blue bags, which they rubbed up with dirt, and Smeds's pack, and headed for the area where the wall had been breached. The city was a place of ghosts. The living cowered behind locked doors and barred windows, praying their gods would keep them safe from the terrors without and the cholera within.
The occasional cry of a cholera victim made Smeds think more of haunts bedamned than of the living in pain.
LXXVI
Exile wouldn't say where the spike was hid. He didn't act like he wanted to pull something, just like he wanted to be in on the whole thing. Like he wanted a look at the cause for all the fuss. Can't say I blame him. I saw it back when it was just a big nail. I wanted to see how it had changed.
He led us up toward Oar's North Gate, got up on the wall, and started marching back and forth. We stuck tight. Outside, the friendly troops had begun a shift to the north. Exile took inspiration, told Brigadier Wildbrand to seal off the area inside the wall. We'd had enough trouble over that hunk of metal already. He asked for masons and heavy lifting equipment to be brought, too.
The damned spike was in the wall! No wonder nobody ever found it.
Wildbrand sent messages. Nightstalkers moved in. I was concerned. I would've been more concerned if the sky wasn't filled with monsters.
It took two hours to assemble machinery and workmen, and another for them to get set up to start pulling the wall apart. Nobody could stay tense all that time.
Sometime during the wait Bomanz asked Exile, "What arrangements did you make to keep your fire fueled? Rendering the Limper was a good idea but you'll have to pressure-cook him for days. The fire seems to be failing."
Exile looked down south. Bomanz was right. Exile frowned, muttered, grumbled at Brigadier Wildbrand. Next time I looked some of my scabrous old buddies from the militia were running firewood to the pot. And not doing a very good job.
Once everything was set and the spike's hiding place was sealed off inside the city and out, Exile asked Darling if she was ready to see it brought to light. She told him to get on with it.
There was a new kind of tension around, like everyone's temper was short and we were all waiting for somebody to do something inexcusable so we could let off steam by kicking his butt.
Guys started banging away with sledges and wedges and pry bars and ten minutes later the first stone rose out of its setting.
The day got on into late afternoon before the workmen exposed the layer of mortar supposed to contain the spike. For a moment everyone forgot enmities and allegiances and crowded up to stare at the blackened half of the spike that lay exposed. Darling told Silent to go get it.
He borrowed a mason's hammer, put on heavy leather gloves, took along a lined leather sack and somebody's old shirt to wrap and pack it in. He wasn't going to take any chances with the damned thing.
Darling readied a small wooden chest.
About the time Silent chopped the spike loose I glanced toward that giant pot. So I missed the beginning of the excitement around me but not its start at the pot, where the men feeding the fire suddenly scattered, like a school of minnows when a large hungry fish appears.
The top blew off the pot.
Something made of pieces of all the things that had gone into the pot, with way too many limbs and those in all the wrong places, crawled over the pot's lip, fell into the fire.
Someone screamed behind me. I whirled.
One slight Nightstalker had knocked Brigadier Wildbrand off the back of the wall. Another had stuck a knife into Exile. The first was hurtling toward Bomanz.
Gossamer and Spidersilk!
Bomanz went over backward, flailing the ah-, and plunged headfirst into the snow that had drifted against the wall.
Only Darling retained any presence of mind. She let go the White Rose banner, yanked out her sword, gave Bomanz's attacker a hearty chop, and followed him over the edge.
The one after Exile screeched.
That screech plain demolished everybody. We all just collapsed.
She jumped down and started hacking and slashing at Silent. She took the spike away, climbed back up, raised it overhead, and howled triumphantly.
Raven appeared out of nowhere, stuck her in the brisket, tried to knock the spike away, failed on his first try but got it his second. It tumbled down into the snow outside. Raven and whichever twin followed it a moment later, Raven grinding his knife into her belly while she screamed and tried to strangle him.
And outside the wall the thing from the pot humped and waddled and dragged itself toward us, oblivious to the resistance of the Plain creatures.
LXXVII
"Time to go," Fish told Smeds.
They stepped out of hiding and strode toward the nearest breach like they were on a mission from the gods. Men wild-eyed with panic paid them no heed. They scrambled over rubble, dropped down outside, and started moving southward.