Surrender to the will of the night iotn-3, page 38
part #3 of Instrumentalities of the Night Series
On the top sides there were crows.
The Ninth Unknown stared, only vaguely aware of the racket being made by the Aelen Kofer approaching. He tried to guess how many crows. How many hundreds of crows. Or maybe ravens. He could not tell the difference with them just sitting there. Nor did he much care when faced with the question of why they were silent and still.
Crows were never silent, and seldom still for long.
Sorcery.
“Of course it’s sorcery, you ass!” he muttered at himself. “The question is, what kind of sorcery? And to what point?”
“Double Great?”
Februaren jumped. Heris had turned into being beside him, unnoticed. “Just thinking out loud, child. You want to take a turn? Why are all those damned crows over there? And why are they so quiet? They ain’t sparrows but they still bicker in their damned sleep.”
“Somebody spelled them so you’d work yourself into an apoplectic lather worrying about why they’re quiet.” Then, in her best spooky voice, “Or maybe they’re not crows. Maybe they’re demons spelled to look like crows.”
“Muno is still laughing about inflicting you on me, isn’t he?”
“I was drafted. But I bet he is sitting in front of a nice fire, maybe with a cute little boy on his lap, drinking coffee and chuckling. What’s this over here?” Heris headed for the gateway.
“Stay back! We can’t just go prancing in! No telling what that might trigger.”
“I’m not going in, Double Great. I’m looking to see what this is.” She indicated a chunk of weathered board tangled in the remains of last summer’s weeds.
“It does look out of place,” Februaren admitted. Grudgingly. Because he should have noticed himself. Long ago. Maybe even the first time he came exploring.
Heris pried the board loose, cracking it lengthwise in the process. The old man took it, again failing to note an important point. He rotated the board so he could see the wet side. “Something written here. It must have been a sign. Hard to make out. Ah. In Firaldian, roughly, it says, ‘Beware of the wolves.’ And something else that I can’t make out.”
“Never damned mind that! Look!” Heris pointed. Vigorously.
A skull and some long bones lay where the sign had hidden them, sunken into the frozen mud under the dead weeds.
“Well,” the old man observed. “That’s something to keep in mind.” He eyed the crows again. They seemed mildly amused. He had stumbled across an old acquaintance of theirs.
Heris asked, “You think they’re hoping we’ll join this guy?” She shuddered. The cold had nothing to do with that.
A heavy tread approached from behind. The old man recognized that step. Khor-ben Jarneyn. Tired and hungry. “That the place?”
“It is,” Februaren admitted. “I’m pretty sure. I’ve never dared go look.”
Iron Eyes pushed between man and woman. Other dwarves rattled and clanked and came to a halt behind them. “How come?”
“It might be dangerous. Why take chances before you need to?”
“To have some fun? Huh! Might be dangerous?” Iron Eyes stepped up to the opening in the rail fence. The crows began to stir, but settled again when he stopped a foot short. Iron Eyes spent two silent minutes glaring straight ahead, at what looked like some kind of structure looming behind a dense growth of leafless trees. Then he came back. “Lots of magic in there. We’ll camp. We’ll rest up. We’ll eat and get our strength back. See if you can bring in some goats. When we’re full of piss and vinegar again we’ll go grab the Bastard. I’ll pick bits off till he says he’ll help us.”
Februaren considered insisting on wasting no time. Anytime now the Windwalker might…
Iron Eyes would remind him that the Windwalker was beached on a stony Andorayan shore, barely able to keep himself together. If Kharoulke regained strength enough to start something he would send his Chosen out long before he regained enough power to do anything directly. The Aelen Kofer would love that. They were spoiling for a fight.
A dustup with the Ninth Unknown would suit them if he started questioning their tactics.
Februaren said, “You all just get comfortable, then. Enjoy your time off. Heris and I don’t have the luxury. Come, Heris.” He touched her so they would stay together while the Construct moved them.
They materialized inside a little-used room in an out-of-the-way wing of the Delari town house in Brothe. Februaren said, “If we’re going to waste time resting we might as well be comfortable.”
Heris grunted and nodded and said, “I can buy into that. Though I don’t expect to do a lot of loafing. Those dwarves need to eat. But not before I get a hot bath and a couple decent meals inside me. Food. Glorious food. If Piper could just not bug me for a few days I’d be in Heaven.”
So, naturally, valuable loafing time got wasted on talk about what was happening in Alten Weinberg.
Khor-ben Jarneyn needed three days to steel himself for the next phase. During that time temperatures rose enough for the ice and snow to start melting.
“Spring is in the air,” Februaren declared. No one got the joke. He sulked, muttering about a congenital Aelen Kofer immunity to humor.
That third morning Iron Eyes said, “We’ve determined the bounds of the place and the three general classes of sorceries protecting it. Since you two aren’t the usual hero type that charges straight in just to see what happens, we’ll experiment before we do the time-honored Aelen Kofer slithering attack.”
“Slithering attack?” Februaren asked.
Iron Eyes ignored him. He barked orders in dwarfish. A couple dozen crossbows materialized, the dwarfish variety so powerful their bolts could punch through granite. So the Aelen Kofer claimed. The weapons began a moaning chorus of strings slicing air, slapping stops, and bolts humming downrange.
The crows over yonder shrieked, outraged. A score had become explosions of blood and feathers. Cursing, they took wing, their cries and pounding wings overwhelming the aria of the Aelen Kofer crossbows. The dwarves impressed the Ninth Unknown by downing the birds on the fly. Maybe fifty, total, died in Jarneyn’s experiment.
The dwarf said, “That didn’t bring anybody out. Maybe the Bastard doesn’t worry about his far-seers.”
“He can afford to lose a few more than Ordnan since he started with a thousand.” The All-Father of the Old Gods, the Gray Walker, had had only two ravens to keep him informed: Thought and Memory.
“You could be right, sorcerer.” Iron Eyes chuckled.
“You laughing means what?”
“The magic here is familiar. Old Gods magic, crudely done. The kind the Aelen Kofer have worked for thousands of years. The Bastard would appear to be self-taught and hasn’t had to operate around people who know what he’s doing.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he’s never dealt with anybody who knows what he’s doing. Was I that opaque?”
The Aelen Kofer began to jabber all at once, in their own language. Heris remarked, “Sounds more like a gang of crows than a gang of crows.”
Aelen Kofer, and Iron Eyes in particular, were conservative where their dignity was concerned. Jarneyn heard Heris. He bellowed. The bickering stopped. Jarneyn barked something else, the essence of which must have been that it was time to get to work.
There was a plan. Despite all the noise. The dwarves jumped to it.
They ignored the gateway. Parties broke through the rail fence fifty yards to either hand, behind potent protective spells. Two parties of ten dwarves each advanced parallel to the remainder of a road. Four dwarves from each breach came along the fence, toward the gateway. Other fours followed the fence going away.
The rest of the company, fifteen Aelen Kofer including Iron Eyes, waited with Heris and Februaren. Jarneyn said, “You two keep your heads down. Pretend you’re not even here. You can be a big, ugly surprise if we need one.”
“That makes sense.”
Heris said, “Sure. Let him think it’s the past catching up when he’s really getting mugged by the future.”
Iron Eyes scowled. He did not understand Heris.
The crows became distressed. They tried swarming the dwarves. The Aelen Kofer did not mind. The birds could not hurt them. Helmets, beards, and armor protected them perfectly. Still, they were covered with gore and feathers when the birds left off.
The parties of four reached the gateway. They talked to Iron Eyes. One dwarf was kind enough to choose a language Cloven Februaren could follow. He delivered an entirely technical report about the architecture of the sorcery protecting the forest island.
In the Aelen Kofer view it was crude peasant fieldstone construction compared to an Aelen Kofer finely crafted formulation.
The craftsmen went to work on the gateway.
Minutes later Iron Eyes said, “The way is open, now.” He trundled through the gateway. “Definitely instinctual work. All self-discovery. But still damned powerful.”
“Must be nice to have a god for your mom,” Heris said. “All that kick-ass power. He must’ve been hell on wheels when he was a baby.”
Iron Eyes launched a tedious exposition about demigods not coming into their powers till puberty.
Cloven Februaren interrupted, “Another benefit: He’s been around and healthy for about a half-dozen centuries.”
Heris gave him a look but did not comment.
Iron Eyes, irked at being cut off, got in no hurry going forward. But, then, haste was a killer when dealing with sorcerous defenses. “Ah. And here come the wolves. We definitely caught this mob napping.”
These wolves were of a breed unknown to Februaren. Those now becoming scarce in Firaldia were gray and mastiff size. These had dark tan and almost black coats on their backs. They were larger. Some might go two hundred pounds. There were a lot of them and they were ferociously upset.
The Aelen Kofer did not mind the wolves, either. Foursomes crouched in a little shielded square and hacked at anything in reach. When one square broke under a torrent of wolves the dwarves just rolled up in balls and let their armor protect them while crossbows elsewhere worked on their attackers.
Februaren asked, “Why would the Bastard think wolves would be effective against people in armor?”
Heris snapped, “He doesn’t get many visitors wearing armor?”
Iron Eyes told her, “He doesn’t get any wearing Aelen Kofer armor. These beasts would shred regular mail like rotted cloth. You two get into the center, here. You aren’t wearing Aelen Kofer armor.”
Iron Eyes’s party formed concentric circles round Heris and Februaren.
The wolves came. All of them. Once. They tried leaping the outer ring. Many suffered from upward thrusts of spear, sword, or ax. But they were amazing jumpers. Several smashed into dwarves of the inner circle, on the fly, and bowled the Aelen Kofer over.
Februaren took Heris’s hand. They turned sideways. They then stood inside the tree line of the woods beyond the fence and observed.
The dwarves of the outer circle did not break discipline. They did not turn to help those behind them. They let Iron Eyes and his companions dispatch the wounded wolves.
The two parties paralleling the road stopped to lend supporting fires.
The wolves recognized failure quickly. The biggest and darkest howled. The survivors raced away, too fast to be targeted. Their tails were down but not so far as to concede defeat.
Heris and Februaren rejoined Iron Eyes. Who said, “That’s a damned useful trick, old-timer. You sure you can’t teach me?”
“Not if you insist on remaining Aelen Kofer.” He did not mention having noted that Aelen Kofer had more pathways to their own world than they admitted. How else to explain their company being more numerous now than when it had left the Realm of the Gods? It expanded only when there were no humans around to see it happen.
Februaren had a feeling the journey would have gone faster and more comfortably had the Aelen Kofer understood middle-world geography. They could have done the overland part in their own world, in a more gracious climate.
Februaren did not raise the subject. Iron Eyes would admit nothing.
Allies need not share every secret.
Iron Eyes said, “It’s too late for me to pick something else to be. This is your world. Have you ever seen so many wolves in one place?”
“No. I can’t imagine a pack numbering sixty or seventy.”
“Definitely not natural.”
There were seventeen dead wolves. Injured animals disappeared into the wood. The rest remained out of range but watchful. Respectfully opportunistic.
Heris said, “That’s not natural, either. And they aren’t interested in us because they’re hungry.”
The wolves all radiated health. They were well fed and well groomed.
Februaren asked, “What next?”
Iron Eyes said, “We go kick the door in and yell, ‘Surprise!’”
“That does sound like fun. Heris and I will be right behind you.”
Iron Eyes awarded the old man a narrow-eyed, sour, almost suspicious scowl. But he got his people moving. The crows raged in protest but kept their distance. Death came suddenly when a bird ranged too near the Aelen Kofer.
Likewise, the wolves. Awaiting their chance.
The bolt from an Aelen Kofer crossbow moved so fast you might only note a flicker before it hit you.
A grim, gray little castle lay at the heart of the wood. It looked deserted. Its drawbridge was down and had been for so long that weeds had crept in over its edges. The moat was turgid but the water did move. Barely. It was not frozen, nor was it more than two feet deep, but it was thick. The bottom was foul, loose mud that went down at least that much farther.
The surface of the drawbridge boasted dried leaves, a few dried weeds that had grown between the timbers, and several dangerous patches of ice. Around it, for thirty feet, lay a scatter of human bones.
Iron Eyes grumbled. “Those bones. I remember. Did you plan to remind me before… What?” The crows had gotten excited.
Two elderly men had appeared on the drawbridge. One carried a rusty old bill, the other a lance that had seen its best days centuries ago. They lacked no confidence. They prepared to hold the bridge.
Iron Eyes muttered something about mercy for the mad. But he did not get carried away. “Shift them without hurting them. If they won’t be shifted, make them a feast for wolves and crows.”
The latter were in the air, excited.
Iron Eyes had used the dwarf language. The old men heard. They seemed amazed. Then decided they were overmatched after all. They went back inside, pursued by the derision of crows.
The entrance loomed dark as a fathomless cave.
Iron Eyes again asked, “You were going to keep me from marching straight in, weren’t you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. On the other hand, it might be instructive to see how Aelen Kofer mail stands up to a falcon’s bite.”
The old man was guessing, based on Piper’s speculations. Layers of hearsay and imagination could be hiding something but it seemed most reasonable to suspect the presence of firepowder weapons. Which he had explained to Iron Eyes when the expedition was forming. “You see any unusual bones around here?”
“I see a lot that are busted up strange. You mean the striped creature? Like the ones that tried to invade the Realm of the Gods?”
“Yes.”
“They don’t look so different with the meat off.”
“Extra fingers and toes.”
“There’s that. But the small bones are scattered, probably for miles. But sometimes theirs are black. Don’t ask why. We found out getting rid of the ones we dealt with before. How should we do this? Can you just pop inside?”
“No. I don’t know what I’d be jumping into. There might be spells to make me unhappy. But I could get up on the wall… Girl!”
Heris turned, perched amongst panicky crows, looked down, turned again to rejoin Februaren and Jarneyn. “Not one falcon, Double Great. Two. One the kind Piper calls a hound. The big kind he got rid of because they worked so bad at Clearenza. The old men are beside them with torches. I didn’t see anybody else. If it wasn’t for them I’d say the place was deserted.”
Februaren told Iron Eyes, “Move your people out of the way, now.” He indicated an arc, narrow end at the gate, that he thought should be dwarf-free. “And tell them there’s going to be a lot of noise. These machines talk loud.”
Heris asked, “What’s the plan?”
“We get those people to think the whole mob is charging in. They fire. Then the whole mob charges in.”
Februaren and Iron Eyes made the arrangements. Crows and wolves observed, remaining at a safe distance. The crows kibitzed. An occasional wolf crawled forward, got hold of a fallen pack mate, dragged it away until one of the Aelen Kofer decided to object. Iron Eyes told Februaren, “That’s clever. The perfect trick.”
It tricked no one.
Iron Eyes, not counting chickens, already had another plan running. Some of his people brought rails from the fence. Wolves paced them but took no risks.
Heris wanted a look at the countryside roundabout. She went up top, came back down. “The wolves are waiting for something.” The beasts were gathering out where they could not be seen, with numerous comings and goings. At least two dozen more had come from somewhere.
“Probably expecting the Bastard.”
Aelen Kofer work parties used fencing to bridge the moat off to the right of the gate. They started building a ladder. Heris told them, “Wait.” She took a coil of rope from a dwarf, turned sideways, then dropped one end from the top of the wall. A half-dozen dwarves swarmed up. They climbed like monkeys despite the clutter they carried.
Those six readied their crossbows, stepped forward, sighted on the two old men. Then dove back so violently that one knocked Heris right off the wall. She did miss the makeshift bridge. Which meant an intimate encounter with icy, nasty, shallow water. She came up cursing, turned sideways, got back up top in time to watch a fog of burned firepowder clear from the little courtyard. Dripping, starting to shudder in the breeze, she demanded, “Anybody hurt?”
