David Drake - The Mirror of Worlds

There are limits to my power, even in this place." Sharina opened her mouth to ask questions: "Will you come with me? What happens if I become visible inside the nest of the Last? What if I can't find the pool or the talisman, the First Stone, in the pool?" That'd be a waste of time, which Rasile had just said was in short supply. Sharina smiled as she walked quickly from the shelter. Instead of a door, the troops'd extended one end of the wall over the other. Sharina's viewpoint moved with her, though she could still see herself. It took some getting used to, but after she'd brushed the side of the passage once-sharp ends of the wattling scratched like a cat's claws-she didn't have trouble. The camp was quiet now in the sunlight. Off-duty soldiers were sleeping; the guards in the towers chatted in desultory fashion or simply stared in the direction of the Last's stronghold.

Sharina could hear a fatigue party working on the southern wall, but the troops' shelters hid them from the eyes she was using. She trotted briskly between the guy ropes and wicker walls. Her feet kicked up dust, but nothing that couldn't pass for a whim of the breeze should anyone even notice; no one did. Sharina'd been concerned about getting out through the main gate, but foragers were driving in a score of donkeys carrying panniers of grain. There were villages of the Grass People within practical distance, though the food this party brought back wouldn't supply the army for very long. She slipped through the gate. A donkey whickered angrily, but the humans didn't see her. One way or the other, the army wouldn't need supplies here for very long.

Waldron had laid out his siege lines a quarter mile from the eastern entrance to the black fortress. The parapet was manned, but all save three small ballistas had been moved to reinforce the other flank where the Last were active. That was a calculated risk: it minimized human casualties unless the Last changed the direction of their attack. If they sallied from the eastern entrance, many men would die holding them for the time it took to bring the artillery back. Waldron had explained and recommended the plan, but Sharina had made the final decision to adopt it. If things went wrong and a thousand brave men were hacked to death in a bloody hour, she'd blame herself. "Lady, help me," she whispered. Then, "Lady, bring my brother back so thathe can make these choices!" There was no gate in the siege lines. Every furlong ramps sloped up to the guard walks eight feet above the ground, and there were simple ladders at intervals between them.

Sharina walked up a ramp to a salient which once'd held a large catapult; now a squad of infantry occupied it. The men wore cuirasses, but they'd taken off their helmets. Four were dicing while the rest looked toward the enemy and talked about food. They didn't notice Sharina step carefully past them to the wall midway between the salient and the next pair of guards. She gripped the vertical stiffeners of a basket, then climbed over the parapet. After hanging for a moment, she dropped into no-man's land and started for the alien fortress. The ground here was lower and wetter; Lord Waldron had sited their camp on the highest terrain besides the rock of Pandah itself.

The elevation was no more than ten feet, but that was the difference between dry bedding and living in a bog. Sharina splashed for a few steps before she slowed and took more care about how she placed her feet. The eyes she watched through moved slightly to the left of the line she'd been taking, so she moved that way herself. The Last curtained the entrance to their fortress with a separate baffle built in front of the main wall of the fortress. Two of the creatures stood in its shelter, concealed from the human siege works. They were as motionless as statues. Sharina paused to let her heart and breathing settle. Her viewpoint edged forward but stopped when Rasile understood what Sharina was doing. Sharina smiled. At any rate, the wizard must've understood that she wasn't going to be dragged into moving faster than she thought was safe. When she decided she was calm enough, Sharina walked past the silent guards and into the fortress.

The touch of amusement at her wordless argument with Rasile had been more helpful than any number of deep breaths. From outside the walls were opaque black in daylight and opaque yellow at night. They were clear with a hint of green from the inside. A troop of forty-odd Last warriors stood near the entrance, ready to respond if humans attacked.

They'd turned their backs to the sun and held their arms raised, spreading the membranes between their arms and pelvis. It made them look batlike, though such short vans couldn't possibly carry man-sized bodies through the air. Sharina remembered that Tenoctris saying the creatures lived on sunshine rather than food and water. The Last looked much less human close up than they had at a distance. Their lower abdomens were merely girders to connect their legs and upper torso. Sharina on, trying to keep at least a double-pace away from the Last. Partly she didn't trust her sense of distance while seeing through Rasile's eyes, but she also wondered how good the Last's sense of touch might be. Would the breeze of her passage rouse the interest of the black monsters? Besides, she didn't want to be close to them.

That they were humanoid made them even more disgusting. It was like seeing apes dressed as courtiers, smirking and mowing in a parody of palace manners. The fortress was roofless; though the walls were transparent, the Last seemed to prefer to absorb the sun's rays unfiltered. The side facing Pandah was higher, jointed together from three or even four layers of pentagonal facets. A score of warriors stood along the southern wall with their membranes spread. At this time of year the sun was high enough to shine into the interior, but come winter it would not. The battle'd be over before winter, though.

Sharina walked cautiously past the warriors feeding on light. She realized she was instinctively afraid that she'd cast a shadow on them, but they seemed as oblivious of her as their fellows at the east entrance had been. Perhaps the greatest difference between the opposing camps was that there was always some activity among the human soldiers. The Last stood as black statues while they were waiting to act. The two creatures on the west end of the line folded their arms, turned, and drew their swords. Sharina froze, though Rasile's eyes moved on a step before stopping to wait for her. The pair strode away from her with a lithe briskness, not quite loping but with none of the jerky angularity that Sharina's mind expected from things that stood like so many marionettes when they weren't moving. They were going toward the western entrance, preparing to attack the human defenses as thousands of their fellows had attacked over the past days… and had died and been replaced, as this pair would die and be replaced.

Just ahead of Sharina was a pool. The Last had cleared its margins as meticulously as a king's robe of state. Nothing impeded the line of sight from it to the southern horizon. There the new white star shone, though concealed for the moment by the noon sun. For an instant the reflection of a warrior shimmered on the pool's surface; then the creature strode out, black and grim and as implacable as sunrise. As it walked to the line where its fellows stood absorbing sunlight before joining the battle, an identical reflection grew sharper on the water from which the first had stepped. Sharina took a deep breath and pulled off her singlet. She tossed it on the ground. Would the Last see the garment now that she wasn't wearing it? It didn't matter: they'd see the splash. Wearing only the Pewle knife on its sealskin belt, Sharina dived into the pool. Her body shattered the image of Prince Vorsan, staring up at her somberly. Lady, aid me that men may live! *** Ilna stepped onto a moonlit slope, facing a ridge of rock thrusting up from the surrounding grassland. She was alone for only an instant before Temple strode through on her left and the two hunters on her right. There was no sign of the portal on this side. Her companions appeared out of the air, swelling like drops of water condensing on cold metal. Asion quickly turned with a stone in the pocket of his sling. Karpos, holding his long knife, looked up the face of the rock without expression. "What is this place, then?" he asked. "It's the Tomb of the Messengers," Temple said, letting his eyes follow the hunter's toward the peak. He pointed with his left hand to a wedge of shadow just above the line where the soil was too thin for oat grass. "The entrance is at the base, however. There." "It looks like close quarters," Karpos said. "Not the sort of place I'd look forward to tracking a cat I'd wounded." "We did the once, though," Asion said with a quick look back at his partner before resuming his survey of the moonlit oats studded with occasional thorn trees. "That striped demon with a pouch that kept stealing our bait way down in the south." "This could be worse'n that ever was," Karpos said. "Temple, the mistress shouldn't go down in that. Should she?"