Into the fire

Chapter 10

The days and nights eked slowly by for Beau and Bekki, Phais and Loric, south along the ridge, the comrades set on edge by the distant thread of fear pulsing through their veins. Turn by turn they stood watch on the besieged city below, but only the fire arrows streaking up at dusk and dawn from the four Dendorian gates broke their weary ward. And back in the camp when he wasn't standing watch, Beau seesawed between pacing and fretting and sitting and fretting-mostly pacing-until finally Bekki exploded: "Argh! Sit down, Beau, else you will dither me to death."

Beau plopped down in the snow. "Oh, Bekki, it's just that, well, you know."

Bekki looked up from the face of the war hammer he was buffing for perhaps the hundredth time. "Aye, Beau, I do know. Pace at need; I will try to hold my tongue."

"It's all this wanting and waiting, Bekki: wanting hot meals and hot baths and hot drink; wanting to be before a good roaring fire; wanting a soft bed to sleep in; wanting to see Tip again-"

"Waiting for Valk and the army to arrive so that we can get on with this war," interjected Bekki, inspecting the bindings 'round the haft.

"Oh, more than that, Bekki, more than that. What I'd really like is for this war to be over and done and Modru and Gyphon to be, to be-"

"Dead!" growled Bekki.

"All right, all right, dead… though I was simply wishing them somehow to be gone."

"Dead is better."

Silence fell between the two, and Beau looked upslope through the pines to where Phais and Loric stood ward in the midmorn, peering at the city beyond the ridge from the camp.

Beau sighed and gestured at Tip's lute safely enwrapped in its velvet and leather casings and lying atop Tip's other gear. "If I knew how to play, I would entertain us… if only I knew how to play."

Bekki barked a laugh. "And if I had the voice of a Fjordlander engel, then would I soar into song with you."

"Engel?"

Bekki smiled. "-One who lives beyond the sky, or so say the Fjordlanders. Lovely in face and form are the engels, and they sing sweeter than larks."

"Oh."

"But you cannot play, and I cannot sing, and so we sit and wait."

"I dunno, Bekki, those songs you sang back in Bridgeton seemed quite good."

Bekki shook his head. "Songs? Nay, not songs; I did not sing; instead they were cants I chanted: of war and death and blood and fire, things to stir a warrior's heart. Nay, we Chakka do not sing songs; instead true singing is left to the, left to the…" Bekki's voice fell to nought, and his eyes took on a distant gaze, as if he were looking through Beau.

"Left to the Chakia," completed Beau. "I know, for I heard them in Mineholt North. In fact, Tip played a song to which they sang, sweeter than larks I might say."

Of a sudden Bekki wiped a sleeve across his abruptly full eyes and cleared his throat. "Indeed, we heard it: it filled the entire mineholt."

Again silence fell between the two. After a while, Beau sighed. "I didn't hear any in Kachar, Chakia singing that is. -And say"-Beau leapt to his feet-"just how long has it been since we were there? Or more to the point, how long has it been since we returned?" Beau began toting on his fingers.

"This is the seventh day since coming back," said Bekki.

Beau held up five fingers on one hand and two on the other. "That's what I come up with, too. -Oh, Bekki, where are Valk and the army? Shouldn't they be here by now? He said they would come within a sevenday, and-"

Bekki threw up a hand for silence. "Hush, Beau, and listen! Something is afoot."

From beyond the crest sounded drums and horns.

Hammer in hand, Bekki jumped to his feet, and together he and Beau ran for the ridge above.

"The Draedan is on the move," said Phais, as the two came panting nigh.

Down below, drums hammered and horns blatted as the Draedan stalked deasil along the inner edge of the ring of Spaunen encamped 'round the walls of Dendor. Toward the western extent he bore, an empty space all about as Rucks and Hloks and Ghuls alike gave way before his dreadful power.

Atop the city walls, armed and armored men rushed to take up station.

"What do you think is going on?" asked Beau.

"A parley," said Loric, pointing.

To the west flew a grey flag before a tent the comrades believed to be the surrogate's, given that it was warded by Ghuls, their Helsteeds close at hand.

At last the Gargon came to a place out from the western gate, and there it halted.

Time passed, and still the horns sounded and the drums beat, and then "Look!" said Bekki. "Above the western gate. Another grey flag is raised. Are they mad? To parley with Modru is to parley with Lord Treachery himself."

"Even so," said Phais, "they may gain information from such a meeting."

Bekki growled but did not reply.

Of a sudden the drums and horns of the Swarm fell silent, though a clarion call from within the walls of Dendor sounded. What it signified, none on the ridge could say.

And still the Gargon's fear pulsed within each heart.

A Ruptish horn blatted, and out from the surrogate's tent a man was led by a Ghul toward a waiting Helsteed. The man bore a bundle of some sort under one arm, and he was boosted onto the 'steed by the Ghul.

"Modru's eyes and ears," growled Bekki.

"Modru's voice," added Loric.

"An abomination," said Phais.

"When we ride to battle," said Bekki, "he is the one we should seek and slay."

Beau shuddered but said nought.

Among the Spawn a second Ghul, this one mounted, reached down and grasped the reins of the surrogate's 'steed and rode out and away from the Swarm and toward the Dendorian west gate, the man trailing after.

On the near side of the surrogate's Helsteed loped a Ruck bearing the grey flag of truce, and on the far side trotted another, the flag on his pole waving black.

The man himself held his bundle close and gestured toward the city ahead.

They came to the foot of the bridge above the moat and stopped. As the Rucks planted the flagstaffs in the snow, of a sudden the Gargon's fear completely ceased.

Beau took in a deep breath of relief, and Phais reached out for Loric's hand. Bekki merely grunted.

The Ghul backed his Helsteed alongside the surrogate's, and turned toward the man, and of a sudden the man thrust the bundle into the air, parts of it dangling down.

"Elwydd," breathed Phais.

"What is it?" asked Beau.

"A corpse," gritted Loric. "It is a corpse he holds on' high."

"Oh my. But why would Modru display a corpse?"

"Terror," growled Bekki. "He seeks to drive terror into the hearts of those he faces."

Beau frowned. "I would think the Gargon enough to do that."

Loric glanced down at the buccan. "He uses the corpse as an example should Agron not bend to his will."

Beau's mouth formed a silent O.

And down below in the distance, still did the mounted surrogate sit before the wall, now gesturing up toward the men above the western gate, now gesturing out and away.

"What do they say?" asked Beau.

"No doubt he demands their surrender," gritted Bekki, his knuckles white on his war hammer.

Now the surrogate flung up a hand, and atop the walls men collapsed to their knees while others ran, and before the gate the flag-bearing Rucks fell to the snow and groveled, and though distant were they all, shrieks of terror could be heard even up on the ridge. "The Horror throws all his dread at them," said Phais.

Suddenly the pulse of fear returned to the comrades, as in the distance the surrogate was led away from the gate and toward his tent along the western periphery.

"Oh my," gasped Beau, "how awful; it's back. I wonder if I'll ever get used to being afraid."

That evening during the last of Beau's watch, even as fire arrows sailed up into the gathering night from each of Dendor's four gates, Phais came running silently up the slope.

With Rucken drums thudding afar and Gargon dread threading through his very soul, "What is it?" called Beau, even more alarmed.

"Hsst, take cover," said Phais, grabbing him by the arm.

"Cover?" Beau clutched his sling all the tighter.

As the Dara hauled him in among the trees, she hissed, "Aye, someone or something comes through the vale behind."

In Beau's mind flashed the ill-formed image of a half-seen monster in Drearwood, a monster that had come crunching 'cross the ice toward Tip and him to nearly kill them both.