Dies The Fire

Chapter Thirty-one

T wo of the ranchers brought Michael Havel his wing. They helped him into the special quick-release harness as well; nobody could have made it before the Change, for fear of lawsuits.

Well, the world may have collapsed into death and darkness, but at least we don't have lawyers and nervous Nellies trying to encase us in bubble-wrap, he thought. Hurrah, not.

He gave a slight chuckle at the thought, and found them staring at him in awe as he tested his grip on the steering bar of the hang glider and the bundle of rope lashed to the frame above his head.

It's not courage, boys, just realism, he thought sardonically. It's a little late for the 'Christ Jesus, this is crazy, run away, run away!' reaction.

One of them handed him a pair of goggles, and he slipped them down over his eyes.

Then: "Remember the guide-lights. See y'all soon!"

Four steps forward and leap:

Wind pouring up the slope caught the black Dacron above him and jerked him skyward; the lights below dwindled, and the air grew yet more chill, making his cheeks burn as his body swung level in the harness. A great exultation flowed through him: Flying again, by God!

In a way, this was even more fun than piloting light aircraft. Less power, but you were one with the air and its currents, like a fish in water. Pull back on the control bar and tilt yourself to the right; the nose came down, the right wingtip tilted up, and you went swooping across the night like an owl. You weren't operating a machine; you were flying, as close to being a bird as a human being could get, barring magic. Once you'd learned how, you didn't have to think of controlling the wing any more than you did of directing your feet.

You just went where you wanted to go, down the mountainside and over the tall pines, out into the valley:

There.

The oval of the castle lay eastward, with the great beacon fire atop the tower on the motte. He banked, leaning and pushing leftward, inertia pressing him against the harness as the hang-glider swerved. And beyond it, beyond Echo Creek, six more big fires; set by Ken Larsson, in a line that gave a precise bearing if you kept them strung like beads behind the beacon.

And don't forget altitude, he told himself, lips peeling back from teeth despite the cold wind in his face.

Too high, and you overshoot and the mission fails. Too low, and you bugsplat on the side of the tower or land right in the middle of the bailey.

Wind cuffed at him, pushing him away from the line of lights. The darkness rushed past: he imagined a line through the night, a line drawn straight towards the beacon fire and tried to keep to it; like a landing approach at night, but without instruments.

Suddenly it was close. The beacon fire wasn't a flickering point of light in the darkness any more; it was a pool of light, then a mass of flames spitting sparks upward, with the black lines of the basket outlined against the ruddy embers: and slightly too low. He was headed for the side of the tower, the rows of narrow arrowslits.

Up. Push at the bar, bring the nose of the triangular wing up: just a little, just a little, feel how she turned speed into height but don't slow down too much, or you'll stall and drop:

There was a checkerboard of machicolations around the top of the tower, unpleasantly like a gap-toothed grin with square teeth. They loomed up at him as he approached, swelling faster and faster.

Mind empty, he felt for the currents of air. They turned rough and choppy-heat rising from torches and fires and hearths bouncing him up and down as he sliced the air over the castle; it made things a lot harder, since he couldn't judge his angle of attack as well. Fabric cracked and thut-tered along the rear edge of the hang glider.

Nobody looking up, he thought, with some corner of his consciousness that wasn't in use processing the information that flowed in through balance and the skin on the palms of his hands. No point in looking up, not anymore:

And the moment was now.

A sentry turned at the last moment; he could see the man's mouth and eyes turn to great Os of horrified surprise. Havel pushed forward on the control bar with all his strength as the edge of the crenellations passed beneath him. Now he did want the wing to flare nose-up and stall, turning from a lifting surface into a giant air-brake catching at the wind.

It jerked Havel's body forward with savage force as it stopped in midair, as if he'd run into a solid wall. He let that force pivot him in the harness, booted feet snapping forward as he swung like a trapeze artist. Both heels struck the guard in the face with an impact that knocked Havel's teeth together so hard that he tasted blood despite the tight clench of his jaw. Stars exploded before his eyes; pain lanced through his body at the contact, and then again when he fell to the rough timbers buttocks first and four feet straight down.

The guard flew backward and landed with his head folded back between his shoulders, so freshly dead that his heels drummed on the wood in a series of galvanic twitches. Havel scrabbled at the release of the harness and flipped himself to his feet while he took an instantaneous inventory; bruises, but nothing torn or broken or too badly wrenched, and the joints worked. The wing fell back behind him, tenting up on the central pole that held the bracing wires.

Someday I'm going to pay for all this:

The other guard turned at the sound of boots meeting face and the jangling thump of an armored body falling limp as death. He stood goggling at the black-clad man from nowhere for a crucial three seconds, then brought his shield up and drew his spear back for a thrust.

Havel drew the puukko from its sheath in a backhand grip with his thumb on the pommel, the thick reverse of the blade lying along his forearm. By then he was charging in a swift silent rush, and the spearhead jabbed out to meet him. He ducked under it with a motion as precise as a matador's, and the edged steel hissed past his left ear; he felt something cold touch him there, too thin and sharp to be pain, and a hot trickle down his neck.

Then he was in past the point, the spear useless. His left hand clamped on the edge of the kite-shaped shield, down below the curve, and he wrenched with all his strength- pushing up and to his right, drawing the man's left arm across his body. In the same fluid motion Havel's right hand punched to the left, and the blade of the puukko snapped out from his fist, shaving-sharp and with all the force of arm and shoulder behind the cut.

The spearman had been about to shout, mouth wide. Now nothing came out of it but the sound of a loud cough, with a fine spray of blood. Havel threw an arm around him and dragged his body to the wall, taking care to prop him over the crenellations-his throat was sliced through the windpipe, and there was a lot of blood in a human body. He didn't want a huge pool making things slippery, and perhaps dripping through to the guardroom below. Nobody would notice it running down the timbers of the motte tower.

Probably. Not in time to make any difference.

For a moment he stood, panting; sweat soaked his clothes despite the night chill, running down his flanks and dripping from his chin mixed with blood. Then he shed his goggles, dragged an arm across his face and let out a long breath. The brief burst of violent effort had taken as much out of him as half a day's marching, and he suppressed a bubble of half-hysterical laughter.

I threw sixes again and it's got to stop sometime! But not right now, please.

Instead he wiped the knife on the dead man's sleeve and re-sheathed it, and unslung the targe from his back. The night was quiet; the crackle of the fire was the loudest sound, and underneath it ran the soughing of the wind, and an occasional challenge-and-response from sentries on the walls.

Christ Jesus but I'd rather be back in my tent, making out. I discover the delights of soon-to-be-married life, and what do I get? Sent back to doing goddamned Black Side ops! And right now I'm remembering very vividly why I didn't reenlist.

A whistle sounded from the rear left-southwestern- corner of the tower top; a wooden stand there held a section of three-inch pipe, with a cone to listen or speak into-an old-fashioned speaking tube, the sort they'd used on ships before telephones. Havel trotted over, pulled out the rubber cork at the base of the cone and whistled back. A voice floated up, tinny and distorted but understandable enough.

"Dinkerman, what the fuck are you two lazy SOBs doing up there? Dancing?"

"We're doing zip, Sergeant Harvey," Havel called back.

He kept his mouth away from the opening, and blessed the patriotic hooker who'd flatbacked her way into a thorough knowledge of the fort's routine. Men heard what they expected to hear, and saw that way too. If you were sitting on the only way up a tower most of a year after the day the aircraft fell, you didn't expect to have someone drop in from the sky and replace your sentries:

"Except we're fighting off enemy paratroopers," he went on. "That keeps us awake."

"Ha fucking ha ha, Dinkerman. You'd fucking better keep awake," the voice warned. "It's seventy-five strokes with the blacksnake if I catch you napping."

Really vigorous zero-tolerance policy, Havel thought. I was always in favor of discipline, but flogging? This is ridiculous.

The round target let him signal, by waving it in front of the fire; it would be visible to the others back on the mountainside, and to the men hidden out on the flat prairie behind the creek too. Then he examined the basket that held the fire; it had a solid concave bottom, hinged on one side and with a release catch on the other, presumably for cleaning and removing ash in the daytime.

One more cheer for you, Ellie Strang, he thought. I'm going to see you get a retirement fund out of this, God damn me if I don't.

The rest of the tower top was a flat square thirty feet by thirty, bare save for a keg of water, a slop bucket, and racks of javelins and piles of stones just right for throwing down on anyone trying to get up. The only equipment was a little portable crane, probably used for hauling up firewood; that was on the eastern side. The floor felt solid beneath his boots; the intel was that it was two sets of twelve-by-twelve timbers laid at right angles to each other with a couple of inches of asphalt and roofing shingle in between, the whole held together with massive bolts. The trapdoor was in the center, a slab of the same square timbers, strapped with sheet metal on top and bottom.

There were strong steel bars that slid across it into loops set in the equally massive floor. Havel grinned in the fire-lit night as he pulled them through and dropped in the locking pins. The tower had been designed for defense from the bottom up, each floor a fortress on its own if the one below was taken. Hence the hinges were on this side, and the trapdoor opened upward; or didn't open, with the bars locked home. The story below was only ten feet from floor to ceiling, and its trapdoor wasn't in line with this one.

Good luck to you trying to batter it open when you twig to what's happened, he thought. You'd have to use drills and cutting tools, it'd take hours.

The hang glider came apart easily; he bundled it off to one side. Then there was nothing to do but check the layout; so far their informants had been right all down the line. He looked over the outer, eastern side. The tower face was sheer to the ground; its walls were yard-thick interlocking timbers, smoothly covered with quarter-inch sheet metal in ten-by-ten squares spiked to the wood and then welded at the edges to make a homogenous slab.

Well, Ken was right. Throwing incendiaries at the surface wouldn't work, even if we could get within range. But:

The mound the tower stood on was narrow and steep, sloping right down into a dry moat filled with barbed wire; a staircase went down the inner side to the bailey. Eastward a raised walkway connected the tower with the fighting platform behind the outer palisade; to the right that ran right to the gatehouse.

Not too many men on the wall.

No point; if the Protector's CO here had them well drilled, they could turn out of their barracks and pack it full in far less time than an assault force would need to get going.

But:

His ears caught a flutter of cloven air. He turned, back against the crenellations, mouth firmed to a thin line. Signe was scheduled to come in next. She was also supposed to be a better hang glider than he was; that might be true, but he was certain she hadn't had as much time in the air: or experience at judging distances in the dark, with life for a forfeit if you were wrong. He pulled out one more piece of equipment; a Ping-Pong paddle with one side painted luminescent white.

His heart tried to hammer as he waved it back and forth with the bright side westward, but he seized control by forcing his breath into regularity-slow, steady and deep. Tension unlocked, and he waited with his hands ready, knees bent and weight forward on the balls of his feet. His eyes were dazzled by looking at the fire, and the torches below; the black wing and black-clad flier were invisible until the last moment:

"Too high!" he barked, throwing out his hands and waving the paddle downward. "Too high, damnit, Christ Jesus, girl, too high!"

The wing cut across the stars overhead, a wedge of deeper blackness. Signe seemed to realize her mistake at the last moment, and did what Havel had done: flared the nose upright to let the wing brake itself against the air. She'd cut it far too close, though: it was above him-and the eastern edge of the tower-when it jerked to a near-halt against the air and started to slide downward.

Havel hopped backward, onto the top of one of the crenellations, one foot braced on the arm of the cargo crane. His hand caught something, clamped hard on a guy wire; it would have cut his hand to the bone, like piano wire through a cheese, save for the tough leather of his glove. The weight tried to snatch him forward off the wall, would have if he hadn't had the crane under his foot for leverage. He threw himself backward instead, and it pivoted inward like a weight on the end of a rope. The half-seen length of Signe's body came down half on and half off the wall, with a startled oofff as the edge drove the wind out of her.

Havel released the wingtip, and she started to slide backward; he leapt and grabbed, a black blur in the darkness, and his hands slapped down on the control bar. He heaved again, feeling the muscles of his shoulders crackle with the grunting strain, heedless of the way she knocked against the parapet; the alternative was falling sixty feet straight down into a moat full of sharp angle iron and barbed wire.

"You all right?" he asked.

"No," she wheezed, one hand on her stomach and the other rubbing her knee. "But I'll do."

"That you will," he said, grinning relief, and helped her out of her harness, stripping her section of rope loose from the frame.

By then it was time; after they saw his signal from the tower top the others were supposed to launch at four-minute intervals. He and Signe spread out to the eastern corners of the tower, waving their paddles with the light side westward. This time it was Aylward, and he flared his wing neatly right in the middle of the flat space. He shed his equipment with businesslike speed, then pulled out his longbow and snapped the halves together; the bottom half of the riser was a metal-lined hollow, and the top its mirror image.

"Next," Havel muttered, as the Englishman strung his weapon.

That was Pamela; she came in so low that for a heart-stopping instant he thought she was going to ram the tower's western wall.

"Not quite!" Signe said beside him, with a gasp of relief.

Instead she skimmed it, so close that a corner of the control bar tapped against the corner of a crenellation; the wing went pinwheeling across the surface of the tower, while she threw her hands in front of her face. Despite that there was a bleeding graze across cheek and nose when she rose.

Havel gave her a nod as she came to her feet and collapsed the wing, hauling it aside to clear the landing area.

"One more and we're safe: on top of the tower of an enemy castle," she said.

"Yeah," he replied dryly.

He did a quick check; they all had their tools ready, and a bandolier of rope over a shoulder. The speaking-tube whistled again. Havel pulled out the plug.

"Dinkerman, why the hell have you locked the trapdoor?" Sergeant Harvey barked. "Get it open, now!"

"Can't do that, sergeant," Havel said regretfully. "The enemy paratroopers are landing more men."

"You make me look bad in front of the baron and I'll have your fucking balls for this, Dinkerman!" Harvey shrieked. "And that's a goddamned promise!"

Ooops, Havel thought, replacing the plug in midtirade. Surprise inspection coming. Well, unless I misread the Protector's little toy army completely, Sergeant Harvey is going to do everything he can to get that hatch open before he pushes it up the chain of command – probably afraid of ol' Blacksnake himself.

He grinned like a shark. That was the problem with a zero-fault policy; people got desperate to cover their asses, rather than get the job done. The Protector was just the type to assume warriors could only be disciplined by terror, too.

But what, O Protector, do you call men who can be easily controlled by fear? he asked sardonically.

Signe's shout of alarm brought him wheeling around. Eric's hang glider was coming in:

"Too high!" someone shouted.

This time it was really too high; fifteen or twenty feet too high, even with the steep dive he'd started when he realized the mistake.

"Wave him on!" Havel said.

They did, with blasphemous additions from Havel and Aylward; the glider was still at least ten feet above the level of the crenellations when it crossed the eastern side of the tower. Havel caught a glimpse of Eric's face, wide-eyed and teeth bared.

"No, no, just pass on and clear the wall!" Havel shouted, knowing exactly what was going through that adrenaline-saturated teenage-male mind.

The shout was probably futile and possibly dangerous, if Sergeant Harvey was listening at one of the arrow slits below. Eric tried to bank and turn instead, and for that he was too low. Any turn loose enough not to stall would bring him around below the level of the tower's top; he saw that, and tried to turn more tightly instead-more tightly than the hang glider's speed and lift could take. For a long instant the black shape hung with its left wingpoint down; then it fell off and fluttered groundward like a huge leaf falling in autumn. Then it struck, vanishing in the blackness to the left of the bridge that spanned the motte's protective ditch.

Signe stifled a scream as she watched her brother fall. Havel nodded respect as she choked it back, and again as Eric augured in silently.

"That's torn it," he said grimly. "Let's go-get that cable down!"

A heave and a kick sent the piled firewood toppling; it was mostly pine, and nicely dry. With the tip of his sword he flicked at the release catch on the fire basket, skipping backward as a torrent of ash and embers and burning wood came flooding out.

Stay warm, Sergeant Harvey, he thought.

Behind him he could hear a chunk sound, then a whirr as the cable on the crane paid*out and down. As he turned, Aylward had swung the crane out-that put the cable six feet out from the wall-and taken stance beside it, one foot up on a crenellation, an arrow nocked, his quiver over his shoulder with the cap open, and the spare bundle of arrows leaning against the parapet ready to his hand.

"Go!" Havel said.

Pam nodded, leaned out, grabbed the cable and went down it with her shins and boots locked around it in good rappelling form-all that rock climbing hadn't gone to waste. He followed, stepping off into space, grabbing the cable and locking it between hands and feet. It was smooth woven wire, three-quarter-inch, capable of bearing a dozen tons and well greased. He clamped hard, felt heat on the insteps of his feet and palms of his hands as friction heated boots and gloves. As he slid-fell through the darkness, there was one wash of light after another. Narrow slivers of light-lanterns coming on behind the firing slits of the tower. Then he let go and fell the last eight feet, landing crouched and drawing his sword with a hiss of metal on leather.

Pam's sword was already out. The walkway they'd landed on was twelve feet across, and the door into the tower was about the same width and height. It had already swung partly open-outwards-and he squinted against the wash of lantern light from within. Men crowded forward, half-armed, confused.

The Bearkillers' swordmistress danced. Her targe beat aside a spearhead, and then the backsword flicked out in a blurring thrust. There was a gurgling scream, a moment of whirling chaos as a man staggered with blood spurting from a severed jugular; a louder scream as she pierced a thigh beneath a scale-mail shirt, ripping the point free with a twist. Havel stepped in, swerved aside from a clumsy spear thrust, grabbed the wood behind the metal and jerked forward. The wielder came with the weapon, running face-first into the punching brass guard of Havel's sword with a wet crunch that jarred up his arm and back with a gruesome finality. The impact kicked the man's body back into the arms of his comrades.

That left three dying men in the entrance, blocking the others with their thrashing and spreading confusion with their screams. Havel and Pamela set their shoulders to the door and ran it closed in stamping unison, like football forwards at a training bar, desperate with haste. Someone would think to get a crossbow eventually:

Booom, as it rammed home.

Pamela was already down on one knee, knocking home three wedges with a wooden mallet and then sticking the handle through loops at their rear to give them each six twists-Ken Larsson had designed them to screw open and lock rear-facing tines into the wood, and Springs had a functioning machine-shop running off horse-cranked belts.

Havel was faintly conscious of boots hitting the walkway behind him, a shout, the clash of steel.

There were two firing slits on either side of the doorway, and only one of him. He'd just have to be quick:

His sword went point-down in the wood beneath his feet. The aerosol can came out instead, and his lighter in his left hand. A savage smile, despite the need of the moment: he'd gotten in trouble for doing this at school, too, but it had impressed Shirley to no end.

This can was much larger and its contents a lot more volatile.

The mist sprayed across the flame, and turned to flame itself-a four-foot gout of it, through the slit and into the eyes and face of the crossbowman within, then two more to set the edges aflame. A bolt whipped out from the other slit; he leapt across, repeated the trick, heard a scream within just as the can hissed dry.

"Eric's alive!" Signe called, as Pamela and he whirled and snatched up their blades.

Havel spared a glance that way. There was more light- the fire on the tower top was brighter as the timbers of the platform caught, lanterns from the upper stories were being brought to the firing slits, and there was a growing blaze around the ground-level slits he'd torched.

That made the black shape of the hang glider in the moat clear enough, and the form writhing out from beneath it. Two of the sharp-pointed angle irons that braced the wire filling the moat pierced the cloth, but none had speared into Eric Larsson. The face raised to the light was still a mask of blood; it had gone into the barbed wire at speed with only his arms and hands to shelter it: though the goggles had probably saved his eyes.

But the wire saved his life, too, Havel knew-the springy mass of it had acted like a pile of mattresses to cushion the impact.

"Get him out," he said. "Don't get caught up in that stuff!"

Signe nodded, lifted the coil of rope from her shoulder and hooked the grapnel over the railing of the walkway. Then she went over it backward, rappelling down as they had on the cable.

"Slight glitch in the plan," Havel said.

Pamela and he exchanged a glance, then stepped past the grapnel. There was another ten yards of walkway beyond that, then the broad, well-braced fighting platform inside the castle's palisade. Just across from that joining was one of the throwing engines, a metal shape hulking under its tarpaulin; the platform extended into a circle around it, and their intel said it could be quickly traversed three-hundred-sixty degrees.

And running towards them were a dozen men-spearmen with shields, and crossbows following. More men shouted and milled around along the wall, but they'd be getting things in gear soon enough.

"Horatius on the fucking bridge," Havel snarled.

"Except that the Etruscans were too idiotic to stand back and shoot arrows," Pamela said tightly. "You know, this isn't what I had in mind when I went to veterinary college."

Noise was mounting too; shouts, the thud of boots on timber, and the growing crackle of the fire on the top of the tower. The snap of bowstring on bracer was lost in it, and the wet meaty thunk of an arrowhead striking flesh at two hundred feet per second. One of the rearmost cross-bowmen stopped and raised his weapon, then buckled at the knees and collapsed forward. Havel saw the arrow strike the next man, even before the first dropped facedown. An armor scale sparked as the bodkin point struck. And another, and another, working forward from the rear The tower top was forty yards away. The ripple of fire would have done credit to a bolt-action sniper rifle in an expert's hands.

"Angel on our shoulder," Havel said, and then: "Haakkaa paalle!"

Three men survived, the first three in the enemy group, too close to the Bearkillers for even a marksman of Ayl-ward's quality to shoot at safely; he'd transferred his attention to the walkway, sweeping it to left and right. All the attackers were in full-length hauberks, with the big kite-shaped shield of the Protector's forces. Havel was acutely aware that he had a lot more target area to cover, with only his sword and targe to protect himself.

Not to mention Signe and her damned fool of a brother, he thought. You know, things are going to get a lot tougher when people who really know how to shoot bows and use swords get more common.

Then there was no time for thinking. Pamela struck first with that smooth economical motion he envied, utterly without wasted effort; she wasn't faster than he was-he'd never met anyone who was-but she did have a lot more experience with sword work.

And a nasty trick of doing the unexpected. Her long lunge started out as a thrust to the face of the man on the left. He threw up his shield, glaring over the edge and drawing back his double-edged sword for a counterattack. But Pam's right knee bent farther, and her arm darted down and to the right, towards the man in the middle, a little behind his comrades.

Into the top of his foot, carelessly advanced beyond the protection of his shield. Pamela's strike was at the end of the foot-arm-blade extension, and the boot was tough leather; there was a crisp popping sound as the point struck. But two inches of sharp steel punched into a man's instep were more than enough, considering the tendons and small bones and veins, not to mention the nerves. She recovered as if driven by coil springs. The injured man shrieked in a high falsetto and spun in a circle, shedding shield and spear and then toppling to the boards with a clash of armor scales, clutching his crippled foot.

The man facing Havel stumbled backward and threw his spear. The weapon wasn't designed for it, but surprise nearly made it work; Havel felt the edge sting his skin right above the kidney as he dodged. The spearman fumbled for his sword and got ijt out, staring wide-eyed past a shock of black hair-he'd forgotten or lost his helmet. Havel feinted low to draw shield and attention, then attacked with a running step, backsword flashing in a looping circle.

"Haakkaa paalle!" he screamed, as foot and arm and blade moved together.

Underneath it came a sickening crack of cloven bone that jarred back into his arm and shoulder, like the feeling of hitting a post at practice, except that this time the blade went right on in a broad follow-through. The Protector's trooper stumbled backward with a giant slice taken out of the top and side of his skull; brain and membrane glistened pink-white and bloody in the firelight. Weirdly, the man didn't fall at once; instead he turned and took three weaving steps, shrieking like a machine in torment with each one, before he went over the side of the walkway and into the barbed wire of the moat.

Well, shit, Havel thought. Ouch.

His eyes were darting about. Aylward came sliding down the cable; he'd probably fired off all eighty shafts, and the tower top showed another reason. The fire up there had spread to the bone-dry pine timbers; melted asphalt was probably dripping down into Sergeant Harvey's ready room: or catching fire and falling as little burning drops. The tower looked like a candle now, with a broad teardrop of fire reaching into the night.

"You two take the ballista," Havel snapped. "Move!"

They ran past him. Havel ran as well, to the spot where Signe's grapnel stood in the wood of the walkway. When he looked down, she waved up at him; the loop at the other end of the rope was under Eric's armpits.

Guts, he thought, as she signaled. She's been wading in barbed wire; has to feel like a pincushion.

Havel heard a sullen boom as he braced a foot against the railing and started to haul hand over hand, slow and steady. Someone inside the tower was trying to break down the door out onto the walkway; they should be able to do that eventually, smashing the hinges if nothing else. The growing bellow of the fire over their heads would add motivation; the only other exit was the staircase down into the courtyard of the castle's bailey.

And I wouldn't want to try to run away while the command structure here is intact.

Ken and Pamela and Aaron Rothman had given him a rundown on various tyrants of history while they discussed Arminger.

Stalin had put it very succinctly: It takes a brave man not to be a hero in my army.

Weight came on the rope-Eric weighed in at around two hundred pounds. Havel couldn't haul quickly; Signe had to free her brother barb by barb as he came clear. She'd already snaggled away hanks of Eric's longish hair that had caught in the dense tangle of wire. Havel had to keep a steady tension so Eric wouldn't drop back into the embrace of the barbs.

After a while Eric could help her, but it still took minutes that stretched like days, and the boom: boom: of the ram beating to free the tower door was like the thudding of some great beast's heart. Seconds ticked by, counting out the balance of life and death, but you didn't save time by rushing.

"Got it," Havel snarled, as the younger man's boots cleared the wire.

"Sorry-" Eric began, as his bloody face came over the railing; blood leaked out from beneath his gloves as well, but he chinned himself and rolled over to the walkway planking.

"Shut up," Havel said. "Let's get her out."

Signe waved as Havel came to the edge of the walkway; she'd managed to crawl onto the surface of the wing, but that didn't help as much as it would have if the hang glider had landed closer to the walkway. They couldn't just snatch her up; there was too much lateral distance.

Boom-crack!

This time a crunching sound ran under the battering; the men in the tower were going to knock the door free soon.

Havel and Eric couldn't wait for her to unhook each barb when she hit the wire, either. They'd have to rip her free by main strength and hope that most of what tore was cloth rather than flesh.

"Get ready!" Havel called, tossing the rope. "We can't take this slow!"

Signe rigged the loop under her arms and crouched on the fabric of the hang glider's wing.

"Now!"

She leapt as the rope came taut and pulled up her legs in a tight tuck, and the two men hauled the line in hand over hand as fast as they could.

The lower half of her body still sagged into the barbs. Both of them heaved at the rope again, pulling her free despite the half-stifled scream as the metal hooks had their way with cloth and flesh. Once more, and she was right beneath the walkway, and from there it was a straight lift. He let Eric take the weight on the rope and leaned down, caught her by the back of her harness and heaved her straight over the railing with six inches to spare.

"Mike!" Eric cried.

The rending crash of breaking timber came a second before a flood of lantern light. And from behind him, Ayl-ward's cry of:

"Down!"

Havel launched himself forward with Signe still in one arm, taking her twin behind the knees with the other; neither of the Larsson twins had his conditioned reflexes- they'd seen a lot of fighting these past eight months, but none of it was that sort. All three of them thumped down on the timbers; Eric screamed a curse as his abused flesh struck, and Signe moaned.

Ahead of them the Protector's men were in the doorway. Ready this time, conical helmets and mailcoats and big kite-shaped shields up, the first rank had their swords out, and the one behind spears ready, hefted to stab overhand.

Chance of us surviving more than thirty seconds in contact with them, somewhere between zip and fucking zero:

Behind the three Bearkillers, something mechanical sounded, a clicking, ratcheting sound. Then:

Tunnngg.

The shot from the ballista went overhead in a rush of flame, with a sound like wind whipping through burning pines and a stench of burning fuel; it was a glass fisherman's float filled with a mixture of gasoline, soap flakes and benzene, and wrapped in gas-soaked cloth.

Score another one for Ms. Strong, he thought. They can throw weights as well as javelins.

The missile struck the line of shields hard enough to knock a man over backward, and the one behind him too. It also shattered; gobbets flew, caught fire from the coating of burning cloth, clung and burned. Men screamed as the liquid flame splashed into their faces or ran beneath their armor; their formation broke apart like the glass of the missile.

Tunnngg.

Another globe of fire flew overhead. This one went directly into the garrison hall and armory that occupied the bottom story of the tower, shattering on the floor and spattering across bedding, furniture and support timbers.

"Start crawling!" Havel said, and did so.

Aylward had the ballista pivoted at right angles to the wall now, and he was lobbing incendiary missiles at the' main gatehouse.

And just maybe we can make something out of this cluster-fuck.

It was then that the crossbowmen in the second level of the tower started firing down at the three black-clad figures crawling away from them along the walkway. A bolt slammed into the thick planks before Havel's face, the heavy dart quivering for an instant like a malignant wasp stinger. More were shooting from the walkway on either side of the ballista, their shafts going overhead with vicious whickt sounds.

If you surprised someone and knocked them back on their heels, got them running in circles, you could use their confusion as a force multiplier. The trouble was that when they got their shit together, numbers started counting again. In a plain stand-up fight, they counted for a great deal.

Another crossbow bolt struck in the wood ahead of him, this time a bare inch from his outstretched fingers.

"Crawl faster!"