A Wizard in Chaos

CHAPTER 18

Looking up, Dirk saw an escort of soldiers surrounding Magda, all reining in. She swung down from her horse and ran to him, hair disheveled, gown very obviously the first thing that came to hand. Dirk could only think, So this is what she looks like first thing in the morning, and found himself wishing he could be there to see the sight for years to come. He shoved himself to his feet, arms wide to catch her.

Magda threw herself into his arms and planted a long, delirious kiss on his lips. When she shoved herself away, she demanded, “Have they hurt you?”

“Nothing that won’t heal in a few days.” Dirk panted. After all, he hadn’t caught his breath the first time.

“If they had slain you, I would have warred on the Hawk Company!” Magda told him, her voice hinting at massacres. “If they dare come against you again, I will slay them all, even if it means my death!”

“No!” Dirk pressed both her hands between his own. “I don’t want your death, I want your life! With mine!”

She stared, suddenly trembling. “I don’t think you meant that as it sounded, sir.”

“I think I did,” Dirk said slowly.

She swayed toward him, eyelids drooping, and their kiss was even longer. When it ended, Dirk held her at arm’s length and said, very seriously, “No matter what happens, you have to live!”

“Then I must go.”

Turning, they saw Gar looming over them like Fate, his face somber.

“Not a word of it!” Magda snapped. “The friend of my friend is mine, too! You shall stay, and we shall fight to the last for you!”

“I will not have the deaths of a whole city on my conscience,” Gar told her, “nor of you and Dirk, when you might be beginning a whole life of joy. I’ll only ask that you give me a horse, preferably your biggest.”

Dirk turned to her, his heart wrenching. “Please understand. I have to go with him, no matter how much I want to stay with you. I can’t let him face them alone.”

“Nor can I,” she said, chin firming with stubbornness. She turned back to Gar. “I will not risk this man for your noble wish of death! You must stay and live!”

“And how many of your people will die?” Gar demanded.

“Few or none!” Magda looked around at her officers and saw the same resolve on their faces. She turned back to Gar. “It’s too late in any event. If we give you up now, the Hawk Company will think us weak, and ripe for the taking—and like as not, they’ll league with several other mercenary companies. All their captains dream of becoming bosses in their own right, and will see Quilichen as their chance!”

“That’s true,” Cort said grimly. Breath caught, he came to his feet and confronted Gar. “If you wish to save them, my friend, you had better think up a way to give them a quick victory.”

Four days later, a caravan appeared, heralded by the hoarse cries of the drivers as they urged their exhausted donkeys to one last effort. Their leader rode ahead of them, waving to the guards and crying, “Sanctuary!”

Gar was taking his turn as officer of the watch at the time, and trying to ignore the resentment of some of the troopers—not that he could blame them for it. The merchant was a welcome diversion. He looked down from the wall, then stared. “Master Ralke?”

“Gar Pike!” The merchant stared back, completely amazed. “So this is why you didn’t return to guard us again!”

“Let him in,” Gar called to the gate guards. “I know him; he’s an honest man.”

Ralke rode in, dismounted, and hurried up to the wall as his caravan entered the city. Once inside, the donkeys slowed, stopped, and dug in their heels in sheer exhaustion. Ralke bustled up to Gar. “Beware, sergeant! There are two companies of mercenaries riding toward you, and a boss with all his bullies!”

“Two companies?” Gar stared. “The Hawks I know of—but who else?”

Ralke shook his head. “I saw them from the top of a ridge, and rode for the nearest town; I couldn’t tell who they were.”

“Serves me right for not listening,” Gar muttered. “I should be more suspicious.” Then, to Ralke, “So the Hawks have managed an alliance.” He made a mental note to investigate telepathically when he could find a few minutes alone. “Thank you for the news, merchant. I believe the castellan will welcome you and your men, but you’ll have to help in the defense.”

“Our chances are far better inside this wall than outside it,” Ralke said fervently.

“I will give you warning,” Gar said slowly. “It’s I the soldiers are chasing—or at least the Hawks are.”

“The Hawks?” Ralke stared. “What did you do to offend them?”

“Caught Torgi out in his mistranslating scheme. He hired the Hawks to assassinate me.”

Ralke grinned. “They haven’t done very well, have they?” Then he realized the implications. “But if Torgi sent them after you, he’ll probably send them after me, too!”

“You seem to have been wise in running for cover,” Gar told him. Ralke frowned. “Where did a mere steward find money enough to hire a whole company?”

“Yes,” Gar said. “That is an interesting question, isn’t it?”

He reported the information to Magda at the end of his watch, and she received it with indifference. “If they’re here for one of you, why not have them here for both?” But she was holding Dirk’s hand, and the glow in her face might have had more to do with her indifference to threat than logic did. For Dirk’s part, he could scarcely take his eyes off her, and Gar felt a stab of envy. “Where’s Cort?”

“Haven’t seen him much,” Dirk answered. “Kind of strange, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely,” Gar told him, poker faced.

Dirk managed to tear his eyes away from Magda. “Any ideas on how to save us all yet?”

“Aside from the obvious,” Gar said, pointing upward, “not much. A merchant just arrived tells me that two mercenary companies are marching toward us, as well as a boss with all his bullies.” Magda finally looked up, dismayed. “Those are great odds indeed!”

“Can’t you bring any other kind of force against them?” Dirk demanded.

Magda turned to frown at him. “How could he?” Gar sighed. “We’ve met a duke on our travels. He’s going to dream about a wizard tonight.”

“How will that help us?” Magda asked, then frowned. “There are no dukes in this land, only bosses.” Again, the implications hit her, and she stared, then exclaimed, “And how would you know what he’ll dream?”

The duke did dream. He usually slept without disturbance, but this night, he dreamed of a void, and a white spot appeared within it, a spot that grew and swelled, until he could see it was a face, a human face, with long, long white hair and a longer white beard that swirled about it. Closer it came and closer, until it stared him eye to eye and intoned, “Avaunt! Avoid the dark giant!”

“What giant?” the duke demanded in his dream. “Do you mean that loutish outlander who overtopped even the Fair Folk? If I never see him again, it will be too soon!”

“You lie,” the wizard intoned. “You plan to track him as the quarry of the Wild Hunt at Midsummer! But that will be too late, for the armies gather to besiege Quilichen and seize the outlander! They will put him to the torture, they will tear his knowledge from him!”

“Then we must capture him at once, and not wait upon them!” the duke declared in his dream. “Harm him not!” the face commanded, its voice echoing all about the duke.

The duke quailed within, but hid it well—after all, he knew the trick of the reverberating voice, had used it often enough himself. “I might have let him be, but not after you have come cawing to disturb my slumber. Who are you, anyway?”

But the face was receding, shrinking, too fast to catch even if the duke had had hands in his dream. The mystic voice echoed again, “Harm him not!”

“I shall harm him so that he wishes he’d never been born!” the duke roared. “Tell me your name!”

But the hair and beard swirled up to hide the face, and the wizard shrank to a dot, a point, and disappeared, leaving behind it one last echo: Harm him not!

The duke awoke, trembling, but covering his fear with rage. “Not harm him? I shall harm him most shrewdly, once I catch him—if for no other reason than to make him tell me how he has put this dream into my mind!”

The people of the farms and villages streamed into Quilichen, driving their cattle with them and carting their household goods and food stocks. There was amazingly little confusion.

Dirk stared down from the castle wall at the farmers driving their cattle into hastily built pens in the park at the town’s center. “And I thought you folk had just had the good sense to leave a large common for recreation!”

“We could not have justified so much space only for pleasure,” Magda said with a smile, holding onto his arm.

“But they’re all going right to the pens, then directly to a section of campground, without even asking!”

“They have done this before, haven’t they?” Gar asked. “And frequently, too, to judge by the smoothness of it all.”

Magda nodded. “At least once every three years, and sometimes more often than that.”

Dirk shuddered.

By the end of the second day, the farmers were all inside, setting up housekeeping at their campsites as though they had lived there for years, and the town was rancid with the smell of livestock. The next morning, the besiegers began to appear. By the afternoon of the fourth day, they had surrounded the city in five separate camps, with space for a sixth.

“Three bosses?” Gar asked, looking out at the banners.

Magda nodded. “I see the insignia of the Boss of Loutre; him alone I did not expect. But the other two are my neighbors, the Boss of Knockenburg and the Boss of Scurrilein. I knew they would come to pick the carcass—and be sure none others took the land.”

“Which means that if they defeat you, they’ll fall to fighting over the spoils,” Gar said grimly. “Even so,” Magda said. “It will be shrewd fighting indeed, for each has hired a mercenary company to protect his interests.” She pointed. “Behold the banners of the Hawk and the Bear!” Her fingers dug into Dirk’s arm. He winced and patted her hand.

“The Hawks were hired by the steward of the Boss of Loutre, and I’ve no doubt that boss is here on my account,” Gar said darkly, “though I would love to know how his steward persuaded him to march against you.”

That was code for Gar to be able to tell the results of his mind-spying publicly, and Dirk knew the response. “Make a guess.”

“I would conjecture that he has told the boss that I cheated him, and that rather badly,” Gar said, “perhaps even that I’m trying to persuade Quilichen to attack, and giving Lady Magda details of Loutre’s defenses.”

“Sounds probable,” Dirk allowed, then stiffened, staring out over the fields. “Who’s that coming?”

Drumbeats came faintly as a host of men came marching down the road toward the gap in the enemy lines.

“The missing ally,” Gar said.

All four strained to make out the symbol on the company’s banner that streamed over the heads of the marching men. Closer they came, closer and closer …

“The Blue Company!” Cort cried. “My own men to me!” He turned to Magda with a face twisted by anguish. “My lady, I can’t fight against my own company!”

“That you cannot,” she agreed, troubled. “Would they march on Quilichen if they knew one of their officers had been given sanctuary here?” Gar asked.

Cort stared at him, hope rising, then turned to gaze out at the approaching troops. “Most likely not! But how shall I tell Captain Devers?”

“Call for a parley,” Dirk suggested,“ and let Cort carry the flag of truce.”

So Cort rode out with a white flag and an honor guard of a dozen archers, their bows ostentatiously slung across their backs. They rode around the castle to the eastern quadrant where the Blue Company stood. Devers took one look at the blue livery under the pale banner and came riding.

“How did you come here, lieutenant?” he demanded.

Cort gave him the condensed version, and Devers’s face swelled darker and darker as he heard how two strangers had fought beside his men, enlisted in the Blue Company, and been chased for days by the Hawks, then taken shelter in Quilichen.

“Sergeant Otto told me some of this when he met me on the road,” he told Cort, “but I hadn’t known you had taken sanctuary in Quilichen again. There can be no question of our fighting against your hosts. Come back to our camp now.”

“By your leave, captain,” Cort said, bracing himself, “I’m honorbound to help defend the city that has saved me.”

“Of course you are, and so am I! The company shall march to resign the contract with the Boss of Knockenburg, and pay back the moneys he has advanced us—but bid your folk be ready to open their gates, for we may have to fight our way to you, and be in need of shelter quickly!”

“Captain, I thank you with all my heart,” Cort said fervently.

Devers shrugged impatiently. “The soldier is loyal to the company, and the company is loyal to the soldier. No mercenary band can hold together otherwise. Go ask your hosts for hospitality for more guests.”

No one tried to stop the Blue Company from entering the city, though—the sight of all those men marching in perfect formation to confront the Boss of Knockenburg seemed to give them second thoughts. They were almost to the city wall before the boss gave the order to charge. Devers relied on Magda and ordered his men to run, telling only the archers at the rear to fight. Two flights of arrows gave the Boss’s army second thoughts; they veered aside as the gates opened and the Blue Company went pelting in.

The Hawk Company, though, was more alert than the boss; when the gate opened, the brown-coated soldiers charged with a roar. Improbable though it seemed, one flying squad made it to the gate before it closed. They shot the porters, then hauled the great doors open. The rest of the company came thundering up, but a flight of arrows from the wall slowed them, while Gar and Cort came bellowing out with a score of Blue soldiers behind them, to knock the Hawks away from the gates. Arrows from the wall pierced the men. They fell howling, and the gates closed again, leaving the Hawk cavalry no choice but to swerve aside, cursing. Arrows stitched a dead-line across the roadway, and the infantry fell back, seeing no purpose in risking their lives to reach closed, guarded doors.

Cort brought his captain up to the wall to meet Magda. Devers bowed over her hand. “My lady! My deepest thanks for having sheltered my men!”

“It was our privilege, captain,” she said. “May we hire the Blue Company now?”

“You may not, lady! We are already in your debt, and will pay it with blood and steel instead of gold!”

“You are too generous.” Magda had to blink a few times before she could go on. “How did you come here?”

“We were hired by Knockenburg,” Devers told her. “The boss told me that the Boss of Loutre had allied with him and persuaded both himself and Scurrilein to bring down Quilichen, because he felt that all merchants, and therefore all free towns, were growing too strong, and would eventually corrupt all the bosstowns with their notions of freedom and prosperity for all.”

Magda stared. “Wherever would the Boss of Loutre have garnered such an idea?”

“From his steward,” Gar said grimly. “Torgi wouldn’t care what arguments he used, so long as he maneuvered his boss into marching. He’s seen that the Hawk Company alone can’t kill me, especially not while I have your protection, my lady, so he has stirred up a war to destroy Quilichen, all to make sure I won’t tell his boss what he’s been doing.” He turned to Magda, bowing. “My lady, once again I offer…”

“No!” she snapped. “When we say we have given you shelter, we stand by our word! So, captain, the bosses have decided to attack the free towns and conquer them before we grow any stronger, and they mean to begin with Quilichen. Is there no thought that they will abandon this madness even if Quilichen falls, or do they truly mean to destroy all?”

“I fear they will finish what they’ve begun,” Devers said heavily. “No matter where the idea came from or why, once it’s born and about, it won’t die, but will grow.”

“So all the free towns will be destroyed, just for one steward’s vendetta,” Dirk said bitterly.

“Can this steward Torgi really have stirred up a campaign against all the free towns just to rid himself of the evidence against him?” Cort asked in disbelief.

“He certainly can,” Gar said grimly.

Magda asked Devers, “How much chance have we of holding against them?”

“Two Free Companies, with the weight of three bosses’ forces behind them?” Devers looked out over the field, his face grim. “Your walls are stout, my lady, and your archers skilled and brave. With my men beside them, we have a chance—but I cannot say how strong that chance may be.”

“Will nothing turn them aside?”

“We can always parley,” Gar said.

Devers shook his head. “It will do no good.”

“Perhaps not,” Gar said, “but it will do no harm, either-and it will, at least, postpone their first attack.”

So the trumpets sounded, the gates opened, and Gar rode out under a white flag—with Cort and Dirk beside him to make sure he didn’t try to give himself up. But they were scarcely clear of the gates when a trumpet blew, men roared, and the Boss of Knockenburg charged them with all his men, while the Hawk Company came riding from the left, along the wall, and the Bear Company came riding from the right. They had chosen their moment well—the porters had to keep the gates open until their men were back inside. The archers laid a row of arrows in front of the boss’s men, and they shied, enough so their brutes had to roar and rant to make them start again. That bought enough time for the parley party to turn back—but the cavalry companies were another matter. The archers shot down at them, but they were so close to the wall that the arrows couldn’t reach them. Archers fired their next volley straight down through the slots in the battlements that were usually reserved for boiling oil, but they weren’t big enough for good aim, and only a few soldiers fell from their horses. The others thundered closer, nearly to the gate …

A hundred trumpets blasted, and lances of light stabbed the foremost riders on each side of the gate. They fell, and their horses reared and turned as thunder cracked all about them, deafening in its intensity. The light-lances stabbed again, scoring the walls, and all the riders pulled up, crying out in fear. Then a huge voice bellowed over the whole plain, “Now I say hold!”

All the fighting men froze, looking about them, then up to the hilltop where the Fair Folk stood, tall and severe, cloaks whipping in the wind, cowls deep to shield them from the sun, huge dark blisters where their eyes should be, making them seem half-human and half-insect. Only Dirk and Gar recognized those blisters as sun goggles.

There were a hundred of them at least.

“We hold all the heights!” the duke’s voice thundered. “Look about you! If any disobeys the Fair Folk, he shall die on a lance of lightning!”

To emphasize the point, a lance from the east hissed through the pole holding the Boss of Loutre’s standard. It fell, and the assembled soldiers raised a torrent of talk. Some turned to run, but laser-bolts burned the grass at the back of their armies, and they froze in fear. Finally they looked around, and saw more Fair Folk darkening the summits of the hills to every side.

“Where did he get them all?” Dirk wondered, amazed.

“I suspect he called in allies from other hills,” Gar told him, “and half of them are wearing skirts, if that makes any difference.”

“When they’re holding laser rifles? It sure does make a difference; to these medieval militarists!”

“You talk as though you know the Fair Folk,” Magda quavered.

Dirk turned to her, suddenly intent, taking her hands. “We spent a night in their hill, my lady, hiding from the Hawks. They would have kept us there, but we escaped. I suspect they don’t feel kindly toward us because of that.”

Fear was still there, but anger rose in Magda behind it. She trembled and her voice shook, but there was iron resolution in it. “They shall not have you!”

“Not while you’re here to come to,” Dirk whispered.

“Room for the Duke of the Hollow Hill!” another voice blasted, and the duke and an entourage of twenty rifle-bearers strode down the hillside. An avenue opened for them like magic, steadily expanding as they strolled along it, rifles at the ready. All eyes were on them, everyone silent in superstitious fear as the Fair Folk exerted what they regarded as their inborn right to rule.

Squarely between armies and wall, the duke stopped and glared up at Gar, where he stood near Magda, somehow conveying the impression of looking down his nose. “This tall Milesian and his friends have angered the Fair Folk! We have come forth by daylight to hale them home! Give them up to us, and no harm shall befall you!”

Magda stood forth, trembling, but her voice was iron-hard as she called down, “Never! They are our guests, and we shall never give them up! It is our honor!”

“And it is the honor of the Fair Folk to have them!” the duke bellowed. “Let fire fall upon this city!”

On the hillside opposite the gate, Fair Folk stepped aside, revealing a squat cylinder as wide as a human arm was long.

“They brought a beam projector!” Dirk hissed. Lightning spat and exploded against the gates of the city. They flew apart, bits of wood raining down everywhere. The gateway to the city stood, open and empty.

The assembled armies strained forward with a roar.

The ball of lightning exploded before them, blasting a crater in the ground. With a moan of superstitious dread, the soldiers pulled back. “Give them up to us,” the duke commanded, “or every building in your town shall suffer that fate!” Dirk exploded louder than the cannon. “Get back into your Hollow Hills!” he bellowed, stepping forward on the ramparts. “Who do you think you are, coming out here and threatening good people whose only fault is sheltering fugitives? Who gave you the right? Do you think your ancestors would be proud of you? With every word you say, you bring down their wrath upon you!”

“Be still!” the duke roared, his voice thunder that echoed off the hillsides. “You are a troll of a Milesian, and unworthy to so much as look upon the Fair Folk!”

Magda tugged at Dirk’s hand, trying to pull him back to safety, but he bellowed on. “And you are unworthy of your lineage! Your ancestors were men and women of peace! They came here so that all people could be equal to one another, none oppressing the other! If they look down upon you now, they’re turning their faces away in shame!”

“Slay me this Milesian!” the duke demanded, and rifles from every hillside centered on Dirk. Before they could fire, though, he bellowed in full rage. “Oh, yes, slay me on lightning! Shoot me down from a mile’s distance! Bravely done, very bravely indeed! You don’t even have the courage to come against a Milesian face-to-face!”

The whole valley was silent, frozen, aghast. Then the duke’s voice answered, softly, but amplified so that everyone could hear: “Is that a challenge, small man?”

“Dirk, no!” Magda gasped.

“It’s the only way,” Dirk muttered to her. Then to the duke, “A challenge, yes, and if I win, you and all your people shall go away, and drive these bosses and their cattle before you!”

“Done!” the duke said, and the gloating was plain in his voice for all to hear. “Come down, little fellow, and you shall be privileged to die upon a sword of the Fair Folk!”

Dirk stepped down, and Magda clung to him, weeping openly. “My darling, no! To have found you, only to lose you!”

“All I care is that you come unscathed through this mess I’ve brought down on you,” Dirk said, then as an afterthought, “and all the people you care for, too.”

Magda straightened, imperious and commanding. “I am the castellan of Quilichen, and while you are here, you are under my authority! I command you not to go!” She turned on Gar. “You! Go in his place!”

“Gladly, for it is I who have brought these Fair Folk upon you,” Gar said, frowning, “and all the bosses and their mercenaries besides. Let me fight him, Dirk.” The look he gave his friend said plainly, For no lover shall miss me if I die.

“I can’t send another man to fight my battles,” Dirk told Magda gravely.

“Then let him fight his own! I am mistress here, and you must obey me!”

“So you think I can’t defend myself from this lanky lout?” Dirk demanded. “But the giant can?”

“It’s not that at all,” Magda snapped. “It’s simply that I don’t mind losing him!”

Dirk took her hand, staring into her eyes. “Does that mean that you don’t want to lose me?”

“Haven’t I only now said it?” Magda demanded fiercely, then wilted. “Yes! It does mean that I do not want to lose you! I have lost one love—I do not wish to lose another! O my darling, if you die in this duel, you shall break my heart again!”

Dirk gazed into her eyes, face totally serious, then very deliberately gathered her into his arms and kissed her.

Everyone on the battlements was quiet, watching. Gar glowered down, his face stone.

Dirk ended the kiss and stepped away, still holding his gaze on hers, still holding her hands. “I have to fight him now, for I’ve given him a challenge, and if I don’t meet it, he’ll take it out on you and your people.”

“Is that all?” Magda cried.

“No,” Dirk said evenly. “The real reason is because if I don’t, I’ll never be able to look in a mirror again, much less look at you without shame.” He released her hands and turned to the stairway—and to Gar, who stood at their head. “Out of my way, old friend. It’s time to earn my life.”

Gar glowered down at him a moment longer, then bowed his head and stepped aside. The ranks of soldiers parted for Dirk, many removing their hats in respect as he passed. Out the main gates he went, striding to meet the duke.

“He must not die!” Magda stepped close to Gar. He reached out to put an arm around her shoulders. “He won’t, my lady. That much I can promise you.”