Troy Denning - The Obsidian Oracle

“Not on your behalf,” replied Agis. “On my own. Tithian betrayed me.”

“You’re wasting your breath,” said Nal. “I won’t fall for your ruse.”

“It’s no ruse,” Agis insisted. “Tithian and I were never partners. We each wanted the Oracle for our own reasons.”

“And I suppose you no longer want it?” mocked Nal. He tossed aside the broken spear. “You’ve suddenly decided that killing Tithian is more important than the Dark Lens?”

“You were inside Tithian’s head!” Agis objected, avoiding a direct answer to the question. “You know what he’ll do if he gets the Oracle!”

The bawan nodded. “That’s true. I also know what he intends for you.” He ripped the crow-head’s breechcloth off the warrior’s loins, then stuffed the filthy rag into the gaping wound to stanch the bleeding. “If you know as well, you could be telling the truth.”

“Let me go after him,” Agis pressed.

Before replying, Nal rose back to his feet, pulling the wounded warrior along with him. “Back to your post!”

The crow-head obeyed, looking dizzy and weak. His feathery ears twitching in irritation, Nal turned his full attention to Agis. “No. However much you despise Tithian, you still want the Oracle for yourself,” he said. “Besides, you must repay me for all the trouble you caused by freeing the Castoffs.”

“How?” Agis asked.

Nal pointed across the causeway to where Mag’r stood with his bodyguards.

“Surely, you don’t think I can kill the sachem single-handedly?” Agis asked.

“No, but if Mag’r has not yet assaulted the gate, it’s because he still hopes you’ll open it. I want you to oblige him,” said the bawan. “The Poison Pack will take care of the rest.”

The bawan pointed toward the gate area. The company of fanged warriors that had fetched Agis from the crystal pit now stood waiting on the cliff overlooking the entry yard. In addition to their steel-tipped lances, each member of the pack had an entire cartload of boulders sitting nearby.

“It seems a risky plan,” Agis observed. “Once the gates are open-”

“I’ll kill Mag’r, and that will end the battle-if not the war,” Nal interrupted. “The Joorsh chiefs will fall to bickering over the next sachem. By the time they sort the matter out, my reinforcements will arrive from the outer islands to replace our losses against the Balican fleet-and I will have returned the Castoffs to their pit.”

After he spoke these last words, he snapped his beak closed with an angry clack and lowered his head toward Agis. For a moment, the noble feared that Nal would attack him, then the bawan said, “It’s the least you can do to repay me for what you have done.”

“You brought this upon yourself when you refused to give the Oracle to the Joorsh,” Agis replied. “And I don’t see that you need me to open the gates.”

“Mag’r is no fool,” the bawan replied. “If he doesn’t see you, he’ll smell a trap and stay away.”

Agis sighed. “If I do this, will you at least send a detail of your own warriors to guard the lens? Perhaps they’ll even be lucky enough to kill Tithian.”

“And where am I supposed to get these warriors?” Nal demanded, waving his hand around the citadel. “The Castoffs that you unleashed have left me with nothing to defend the walls. The Joorsh could break through in a dozen places.”

What the bawan said was true. There were several gaps along the walls, with unconscious Saram slumped down behind the merlons, draped over rock carts, and even sprawled on the staircases. More than a dozen of the warriors who remained standing had been beset by Castoffs, and were tearing the hide from their own faces or banging their heads into the walls.

“If I didn’t need you to lure Mag’r into my trap, I would kill you now for the trouble you have caused,” said Nal, one golden eye fixed on a flock of nearby Castoffs.

“What you’ve done to them is wrong,” said Agis. “I’m glad they’re free.”

“Don’t be too glad,” said Nal. “One of the bawan’s duties is to protect his tribe from the Castoffs. Once this battle is over and I have time to gather them up, I’ll make their return to the pit as unpleasant for them as the Castoffs are making my warrior’s lives right now.”

With that, the bawan climbed down from the wall. He took Agis to the path leading down into the gateyard, stopping beside the huge stone ball at the top of the path. “After you open the gates, make sure that the Joorsh see you,” said Nal.

Agis eyed the scene below. The path had been carved into the cliff with a high lip on its outer side, so that it formed a deep channel down which the stone ball would roll. At the bottom of the steep slope, this gutter curved gently to the right and opened into the entry yard, directly across from the gates themselves.

Between the trench-path and the gates sat the small courtyard where most of the killing would take place. It was surrounded on all sides by the high walls of the outer curtain, the two gate towers, and the cliff upon which the noble and Bawan Nal now stood. A dozen ordinary Saram warriors crouched atop the gate towers, boulders heaped at their sides. The Poison Patrol manned the cliff top, ready to charge down the path as soon as they threw their cartloads of boulders down into the yard. Only the walls of the outer curtain were lightly manned, for any warriors there would be visible on the shores of Lybdos, and might cause Mag’r to grow suspicious of a trap.

In the courtyard itself, Nal had laid a pair of dead beastheads near the exit, where they would be seen by anyone entering the castle. Their purpose, Agis assumed, was to reassure the Joorsh that the gates had not been opened without a fight. The noble was about to comment on the bawan’s preparations when he noticed that the stonework around the gate was not up to the quality of the rest of the castle. The blocks were much smaller and fitted together less tightly, as if it had been necessary to rebuild the entryway and the task had been done in a hurry.

“You intend to capture Mag’r in the yard?” Agis asked.

“How perceptive,” Nal replied sarcastically.

“Then there’s a flaw in your plan,” the noble said, eyeing the huge stone at his side. “That ball will never stop when it hits the gateway. It’ll crash through the front wall like paper.”

“Probably,” replied the bawan. “But what makes you think I intend to loose the ball?”

“How else can you seal the gate after I open it?”

Nal put the noble down and gestured for him to descend the path. “You shall see soon enough,” he said. “Now go.”

Agis started down the trench path at a run, keeping his eyes fixed on the broken ground beneath his feet. When he had guided the dead bear up the lane, the surface had not seemed quite so uneven, perhaps because of the great size of the beast’s paws. To Agis’s feet, however, the loose rocks and enormous potholes were sizable obstacles, and he had to pick his footing carefully. As he ran, Joorsh boulders continued to pound the gate area, filling the pit with deafening booms and rumbles.

Whenever the path was smooth enough that Agis could lift his eyes without running the risk of breaking a leg, he searched the courtyard below for a place to hide. Once the Saram sprang their ambush, he knew, stones and lances would rain down into the pit with unimaginable ferocity. If he had not concealed himself in a safe place by then, it would hardly matter that he now knew where to look for the Oracle.

To his dismay, there were no doorways or arrow loops into which he could duck, no alcoves where the sentries had once gone to escape the blazing sun, not even any man-sized nooks or crannies in the stone blocks. The only place he could see that would be sheltered from the rain of boulders and lances was beneath the gate arch itself-which hardly seemed like a wise place to stand, given that it would be the Joorsh’s only escape route once the battle began.