Hugh Cook - The wizards and the warriors

At a council of war, Hearst listened to battle reports in silence.

'Will they try another sortie tonight?' said Watashi. 'They'll try something,* said Hearst. 'You can count on that.'

'So there'll be more dead,' said Farfalla. 'More maimed and mutilated war victims, crippled for the rest of their lives.'

Hearst winced. if we can't accept casualties, then we'd better surrender now," said Hearst.

'Morale is good,' said Watashi, 'We're ready for a long siege, if that's what's necessary. But it won't be easy.'

'You don't have to tell me that,' said Hearst. 406 It was then that their council of war was interrupted as a messenger was brought into their presence by armed guards. He was exhausted, his clothing bloodstained; it was clear he had been wounded in the chest. He tried to stand up straight before them, but staggered. A guard supported him. He tried to speak, but no words came.

'What's this about?' said Hearst. 'He brings a message,' said a guard. 'He passed it to me.'

'Let me read it,' said Hearst. 'Sit him down. Bring him some water. Here. Now.'

And Hearst took a piece of parchment from the guard. On one side was the original draft, written in the language of the Harvest Plains, which he could not understand; it was adorned by an elaborate signature and a wax seal. On the other side, someone had scrawled a translation in the Galish Trading Tongue.

'Who translated this?' said Hearst.

'Patrol,' said the messenger, getting the word out with difficulty. 'Thought me a spy. Questioned me, long time. Translation by patrol leader, your attention. Believe me.'

'Maybe he is a spy,' said Hearst. 'However, the message purports to be from a fortress commander on the border between the Rice Empire and the Harvest Plains. He says his castle is besieged by part of an army from the Rice Empire, and the rest of that army marches for Selzirk. He is sending this message with a sortie party.'

Hearst passed the parchment to Watashi. it's authentic,' said Watashi. i know the seal. I know the commander, too – the original message bears his signature, and has been drafted by his hand.'

The messenger spoke again. His voice was weak: 'Only one. Me. Only one alive. All the rest…'

'We understand,' said Farfalla. 'Lie back. Rest. Don't do yourself further injury by trying to talk.'

'So the Rice Empire hopes to profit from our troubles,' said Watashi, 'If they reach Selzirk…'

'Well,' said Farfalla, looking at Hearst. 'Do you still think you have time to break Androlmarphos by siege?'

Hearst met her gaze in silence. Then spoke: 'I am not going to use the death-stone.'

'You could threaten to use it.'

'Elkor Alish knows the population of Androlmarphos is his guarantee against attack by the death-stone,' said Hearst. 'He also knows that sooner or later we'll have to take the death-stone south – or else a party from the Castle of Controlling Power will come north to take it from us. Time is on his side: he won't listen to threats.'

'Then what about that pirate creature, Ohio?' said Farfalla. isn't his brother the commander of the pirates? Isn't that what you told me?'

'I can't use a friend as a hostage,' said Hearst, regretting now that he had. in an intimate moment, revealed Ohio's secrets.

'Pretend, then,' said Farfalla. 'Ohio would surely consent to being tied up and led out on a horse in front of the battlements of Androlmarphos. If we made his brother believe we had murder in mind, perhaps he'd parley with us. We could come to an arrangement.'

'Alish won't surrender no matter what Menator says.' said Hearst.

'Then we can surely persuade Menator to murder Elkor Alish,' said Farfalla. 'He gets Ohio's life – and money, if he wants. And a treaty to guarantee his hold over Runcorn.'

'That's a foul way to work,' said Hearst. i've seen the dead,' said Farfalla. i've seen the wounded. All war is foul'

Hearst thought it through, then said, his voice heavy: 'Go and bring Ohio to me.'

Watashi moved to obey.

Hearst and Miphon stood on the plains two leagues east of Androlmarphos and a league west of the burial mound and the pyramid. In the green bottle, they had two horses and four hundred soldiers. There was nobody between them and the city; the siege lines had been evacuated the day before.

Miphon was looking inland, to the east, waiting for a signal to come from the fleet anchored upriver. Hearst, on the other hand, watched the walls of Androlmarphos, and remembered what had happened outside those walls.

Ohio had agreed readily enough that they could use him as a hostage to try and get his brother Menator to negotiate with them. Ohio had been tied up and put on a horse which had been led out onto some open ground in front of Lake Ouija.

A small party, including Hearst and Watashi, had waited to receive an equally small delegation from Androlmarphos, which had included Menator. The pirate commander had refused to make any bargain with the people from the Harvest Plains, but, thinking the threat to Ohio's life was real, had tried to rescue him, even though there had been bad blood between them in the past.

In a short fight, Menator and most of his party had been killed; Ohio had died when the horse he was seated on had reared, throwing him to the ground. With his hands tied, he had landed heavily, breaking his neck.

Hearst was now forced to use the death-stone. He did not have time to recapture Androlmarphos by siege: he had to march Farfalla's army east to defend Selzirk against the invaders from the Rice Empire. As it was, he calculated they would barely reach Selzirk in time. 'Any smoke yet?' said Hearst. 'Nothing,' said Miphon.

Hearst wondered where Alish was at that moment -and what he was thinking. Did Alish suspect the death-stone was about to be used against him? 'How is the messenger?' said Hearst.

'The messenger?'

'The one from the south who brought the message about the army from the Rice Empire. I wanted you to have a look at his wound.'

'He died before I could see him.'

'Oh,' said Hearst.

So that was another death to take into account. One amongst many. Now Hearst was going to use the death-stone: but that in itself should not produce too many casualties, for he had calculated that, from where he stood, its effects should extend just far enough to destroy part of the city walls.

'Green smoke,' said Miphon.

There was indeed green smoke rising in the east. Ships anchored upriver would soon attack, expecting to find the walls of Androlmarphos breached. Hearst could have sheltered thousands of men in the green and red bottles, but, as no more than fifty men could be taken in or out of one of the bottles at a time, the fastest way to launch a mass assault on the city was by ship.

'Take your position,' said Hearst. •Miphon sat cross-legged on the hard dry ground at Hearst's feet.

Hearst took the death-stone from a leather bag. The stone egg was cool. Heavy. He raised it above his head. The shadow of a buzzard flickered over the ground. The death-stone kicked in his hand like a human heart. He cried out, his battle-hoarse voice naming the Words. The death-stone warmed in his hand. His heart faltered, trembled, kicked three times in an odd, irregular rhythm.

There was a grinding sound in the sky, which grew steadily stronger.

As Hearst watched, the few pebbles he could see on the dry earth began to tremble as the grinding sound grew louder. In a moment of hallucinatory clarity, he remembered the desperate moments at Ep Pass – rocks shifting underfoot as he fled from Heenmor, his hands and face stinging from burns, his nostrils filled with the stench of burnt leather, his eyes watering from smoke.

Now, as he watched – the death-stone heavy in his hand, his arm trembling – the little pebbles, shape-shifting, began to move. Like insects. The air was turning grey. The ground… the ground, outside a small circle he could have spanned with outstretched arms, was turning grey. As the ground turned to stone, the mobilised pebbles skittered across its surface like raindrops wind-driven across a pane of glass.