Michael Williams - Weasel's Luck

I remember only the waking, Bayard shaking me back into light and cold and pain, and into a sadness I did not recognize for a moment—a sadness I could not place until I saw the centaur bodies and remembered.

“As you said,” Bayard soothed, helping me to my feet, “it was no longer Agion.”

“And yet. . . for a moment there, I thought it was Agion, thought that despite death and what the Scorpion had wrought, our old friend stayed his hand,” I murmured.

“Perhaps he did, lad,” Sir Robert replied softly. “And let it encourage us, for it shows that the Scorpion’s power does not go on forever.”

“That some things,” Brithelm added softly, “are stronger than death.”

We paused in silence for a moment. Sir Robert pointed toward the open gate. And two by two we walked toward its menacing arch.

Through a curtain of driving snow, through the hovering mist, they appeared—the shadows of men, crouched, shambling, almost apelike in their movements. Though the forms were dim behind us and beside us, I could tell they were carrying weapons; the slim shadows of curved Nerakan swords lay in their shadowy hands. The cold air around us drummed with groans and inhuman cries.

It was as though someone were smothering an army.

Bayard drew his sword and started for the heart of the shadows, but Brithelm grabbed his arm.

“Sir Bayard, your duty lies in the castle—a task none but you can perform. For who knows but that the Lady Enid faces horrors that make ours seem light?”

“B-but . . . ,” Bayard began.

“Into the castle, sir, and may the gods speed you.” Brithelm smiled serenely, confidently. An arrow flew out of the mist and clattered on the stony ground beside him.

“By Paladine, you’ll not stand against an army alone, lad!” bellowed Sir Ramiro. “Give me an armed enemy any day, rather than the cloudy hocus-pocus you’ll find in that house of mirrors there. Bring ’em on, dead or alive! I’ll be watching your back, Brithelm!”

Ramiro drew his sword, pushed me toward Bayard, and took his place beside my calm, clerical brother. Bayard grabbed my arm and pulled me, struggling, onto the drawbridge, Alfric and Sir Robert following closely behind us.

As we crossed the bridge toward the gate looming dark in front of us, Bayard leaned into me and whispered, “Don’t worry, son.”

We looked back upon my brother, the man of peace, bearing weapons among mist-covered stones. Beside him stood that hulking, merry man, Ramiro, whose enormous shield was raised over both of them to guard against the arching arrows.

“I trust we shall see them both again, Galen. Accidents avoid them.”

Suddenly a red light shot from Brithelm’s hand and buried itself in the shadowy forms in front of him. A loud shriek tore through the mist, and the army stopped in its tracks, hovering some distance away from our little rear guard.

“Damn!” I heard Ramiro rumble before I lost his voice in the mist and the outcry of shadowy soldiers.

“Everywhere you look, this damnable sleight of hand! What does it take for a man to find sensible company?”

And he laughed heartily, shaking his shield in front of the gibbering soldiers.

From that point on, the laughter faded. We passed first under the great arch of the castle gate. The courtyard itself seemed dreamed up, half-remembered from images of Castle di Caela and built with an eye to the floor plans only. The buildings were the same shape and size, rising from the same points within the courtyard. That is, as far as I could see. For at the far reaches of the courtyard, the towers and shops and stables—the battlements themselves—were lost behind mists, or dissolved into mists. Sometimes a wall would be there, then seemed to be there no longer, as though it were solid or insubstantial, depending on a gust of wind or the intensity of the snow.

I was possessed of the uncanny feeling that the builder had it right only by blueprint. The keep and the towers and the other structures looked hollow, made up for visitors.

Whether it was from the mist or from some darker intention, the ground seemed to appear in front of us as we crossed toward the bailey. We dismounted at once, letting the horses go where they would in the confines of the courtyard. They would be safe, no doubt, and perhaps unnecessary from this time on. Behind us, outside the walls, screams arose out of the fog. For a moment Bayard paused, turned, ind prepared to go back. Then he muttered “Enid,” grabbed me by the arm, and virtually lifted me above the mist as the horses galloped off. Together, slowly, we tested our first few steps, then picked up the pace to catch Sir Robert and Alfric, who had sprinted on ahead of us. We overtook them at the door of the keep. Which, unlike the gate, was locked. Sir Robert had tried it once, twice, and now was pacing, stomping and blustering, while Alfric used Father’s sword in an idiotic attempt to pry open the door.

“Out of the way!” Bayard shouted, and Alfric, accustomed to scrambling out of everyone’s way, did so with surprising ease and grace. Bayard took four steps and leaped toward the door, giving it a resounding kick. The door shivered but neither broke nor dislodged. Bayard bounced off the thick oak and clattered to the ground where he lay winded and dazed. Behind us and around us, the courtyard seemed to come to life. From somewhere in the mists I could hear heavy movement, the creak of leather and of metal, and the grumble of something large stirring and breathing. It was beginning to move our way.

Bayard labored to his feet with help from Sir Robert and prepared to rush the door again. Alfric moved quickly beside me and tugged at my sleeve.

“There’s something out there, Brother, and I expect it has designs on us by now.”

I agreed and said, “We’d better distract Sir Bayard before he injures himself, and then find a window to gain entry. Whatever lies in store for us is not through that door, evidently.”

Bayard crashed against the door in question, then lay motionless beside it before beginning once more the painful struggle to his feet. The sounds—the snuffling, the movement of armor—grew nearer, and huge, horned things now hovered dark at the edge of the mist.

“Demons!” Alfric exclaimed.

“Men of Neraka,” Sir Robert corrected, grabbing my eldest brother, “dressed in their ceremonial minotaur helmets, calling on Kiri-Jolith to scatter their enemies. And some time dead from the smell of them. Pick up your sword. They’re coming this way. Quickly, around the side of the keep. If I’m not mistaken, there will be windows there.”

We understood well enough, and the four of us started off toward where we hoped devoutly would be windows, Sir Robert clanking in the lead and Alfric no less noisy right behind him, I followed the two of them, blending in and out of the mist as quietly as one of Mariel di Caela’s cats, and Bayard hobbled along at the rear, sword drawn.

It was evident by the time we reached the topiary and the chamber window that the Nerakan soldiers—or whatever they were—had gained ground on us. At first, thinking they were upon us, we drew our weapons as we turned the corner of the keep wall and saw horned figures in the garden by the window. But those were only shrubbery in the shape of owls, and we relaxed but a moment before we could hear, through the mists beyond the garden, the sound of snuffling and steady movement.

“Keep going around the wall!” Alfric urged. “They’ll catch us here for sure! There must be other windows! You should know, Sir Robert!”

“Oh, there are other windows,” Sir Robert mused calmly, “but none on this side of the keep that we can reach. Just listen; ahead of us, along the wall, is the same sound we have been running from since first we heard it. Whether it is armed men, or monsters, living or dead, we should prepare to take them here. The last thing they’ll expect is a fight, so that is precisely what we’ll give them.”