David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

The many, many people gathered on the plaza gave a swelling cry. Not even Garric or Sharina could've counted so many people. The ones standing nearest the shaft saw who'd arrived, and their excitement spread around the vast space like a ripple across a pond.

Mab raised her arms. She'd entered the shaft as an aged crone, but when Cashel glanced at her now he staggered as though a mule had kicked him unexpectedly: she looked exactly like Ilna. She had the slight, trim build; the black hair cut short; and the firm, disapproving set of the jaw. Only Mab's fingernails, dazzling with their own light in the bloody glow of sunset, were different from those of Cashel's sister.

"Citizens of Ronn!" Mab said. From the way the crowd reacted, everybody on the plaza heard her just as they'd heard those speaking in the Assembly Hall. With different emphasis Mab went on, "Menof Ronn. Your Heroes have come to lead you. Will you follow them?"

The crowd breathed deeply, like a team of oxen facing an oncoming storm. One voice spoke across the plaza for all: "Lady, the Made Men are here. They're filling the plain, and soon they'll climb our walls."

The sun was so low that only the upper rim showed where the hills to the west curved to meet the sea. There were no clouds, but the sky didn't have the crystal transparency Cashel remembered from the previous night here. The fairy lights that drifted over the crowd were scarcely bright enough to see.

"That's why you needed leaders," Virdin said. His voice rumbled through the twilight like distant thunder. "That's why you sent for us."

He and the other Heroes walked deliberately toward the knee-high parapet on the north side of the plaza. The spectators parted like water from the prow of a royal barge. Mab nodded agreement at Cashel's glance. Together they followed the Heroes at a respectful double-pace, close enough that the citizens returning to where they'd stood before didn't crowd them.

The Heroes reached the parapet and stared down on the darkening plain. "It's the worst I've seen them," Hrandis said. "Worse even than the last time. My last time before now."

"There's six of us," said one of the twins. "That's different as well."

Dasborn touched Valeri's shoulder, moving him away, then nodded Cashel forward into the space he'd opened. "Go on, Cashel," Mab said. "You're here, so take a look."

Cashel looked down. The sun had fully set and the sky was darker than it should've been at this hour. It was too shadowed for there to be shapes, but he could see, couldfeel, the movement on the plain below.

"There'd never be a bad time to finish this," Valeri said. "It shouldn't have waited a thousand years. It won't wait any longer."

"Tonight will finish it one way or the other," said Dasborn. "I don't suppose it really matters which, in the greater scheme of things."

"I didn't come here to lose," Cashel said. He held his staff upright in his right hand; his thumb gently rubbed the smooth wood. He looked over his shoulder and saw Mab smiling. "Mab didn't bring me here to lose. Ma'am, what do we do next?"

"We attack them," said Virdin. He stepped onto the parapet and turned so that he could be seen as well as heard across the vast assemblage. "We attack and finish them once and for all, just as Valeri said."

He raised not his arm but his long, straight sword. A flicker of blue wizardlight ran up the blade.

"Men of Ronn!" he said, silencing the whispers running like surf across the plaza. "Tonight we take back our city and gain our freedom forever! Go to your homes and arm yourself with the weapons your grandfather's grandfather left for you. In an hour, my companions and I will lead you onto the plain to sweep from the earth the monsters that claim the name of men."

The crowd quivered but didn't move. Its collective will spoke in the voice of a young man, probably someone much like the Sons who Cashel'd led down to be changed into what the times required: "It's night. We should wait for dawn!"

"If you wait," boomed Hrandis, "there'll never be another dawn for you and yours. The race of men will be extinguished from Ronn, and the King's minions will walk the city's halls forever!"

There was a murmur of wordless despair. They wanted a softer choice, but all the Heroes offered them was to do or to die.

"It isn't fair!" the voice of the crowd cried.

Cashel sighed. He felt sorry for the citizens, but they were trying to quarrel with the universe. A shepherd learns early that wishing there wasn't a blizzard won't save your sheep if you don't get them to cover in time.

Mab gestured before her and murmured softly. Her hands spread light across the sky. The glow was no brighter than a crescent moon, but by displacing the darkness it lifted people's spirits like a brilliant sunrise.

"Men of Ronn!" Mab said. "Arm yourselves and follow your leaders to freedom!"

"Freedom!" echoed the crowd's voice. This time the people were moving, dissolving down the stairs and shafts that would take the men to their weapons and the women to their homes.

The Heroes watched with varied expressions-Virdin approving, Valeri with an angry sneer; Dasborn smiling at the wry joke in his mind. Menon and Minon looked cheerful, and squat Hrandis checked the edges of his axes. They were six different people, not one man with six faces; but they were each of them the man for this work.

As was Cashel or-Kenset. He flexed his shoulders, waiting for the crowd to thin a little more so that he could give his quarterstaff a trial spin.

He looked over the parapet. The plain still moved, but now that Mab's power had lit it Cashel no longer thought of waves on the Inner Sea. This white mass seethed like maggots in rotting meat.

"Wildulf's left the palace, your highness!" Lord Rosen said as Garric followed Liane out of Dipsas' dark cubby and into the windowed portion of the Countess' suite. "I think he's gone to his army west of the city!"

"I knew we couldn't trust him!" said Attaper, behind Garric and thus forming the rear guard. "The attack this morning was probably his doing!"

"We don't know that," said Garric in exasperation. "Anyway, it doesn't matter now. We've got to get out of this palace and set up a cordon around it, which'll take all the troops we can gather. If Wildulf brings his own forces in, so much the better!"

Garric didn't imagine Wildulfdid have anything to do with the mob's attack. The frozen, frightened Earl they'd found in the Audience Hall wasn't a man who'd been weaving cunning plots-and Wildulf's hatred of Dipsas, who certainlywas involved in the plot, hadn't been feigned.

Attaper assumed the worst about the people around him. Garric supposed that was part of commanding the royal bodyguard, but it still made the man difficult to be around at times.

They reached the hallway. Servants stood against the walls, whispering in shock and horror to their fellows.

"Go on, get out!" Garric shouted to them. "The building isn't safe!"

When he'd come up from the tunnels he'd had a momentary urge to rip the screens of patterned fabric off the windows and let the sunlight blaze in, but it was more important to simply get out while they could. The ground beneath was a warren, and the things squirming through its passages were far worse than rats. There was no safety within walls that might at any instant spew murderous creatures as white as fungus sprouting from a corpse.

"Your highness, I suggest we tell the City Prefect to get all civilians out of the city as quickly as possible," said Liane. She held up a wax tablet with a few lines of writing and the impression of Prince Garric's seal-which she carried.

She must've composed the document in the moments since they'd reached the surface. That was amazing enough; it was beyond imagination that even Liane should've written the order while they were scrambling through the dark.