People of the Talisman

VIII

They waited.

Some distance away in either direction a guard was huddled down over a small brazier, each one making a sort of tent out of his cloak to hoard the heat. They glanced incuriously at the three civilians, apparently content merely to survive these last hours of the night, when a man’s will and courage ran out of him like water from a cracked vessel. The wind came whistling down through the Gates of Death, and below in the empty streets the watchfires shuddered and flared.

They waited, and still there was nothing.

Balin said at last, “How can you know they’re coming?”

Stark shivered, a shallow rippling of the flesh that had nothing to do with cold, and every muscle of his body came alive. The farther moon plunged downward. The moonlight dimmed and changed, and the plain was very empty, very still.

“They will wait for darkness,” Stark said. “They will have an hour or so, between moonset and the rising of the sun.”

He turned his head, drawn inevitably to look toward the cliffs above Kushat. Here, close under them, they seemed to tower outward in a curving mass, like the last wave of eternity rolling down, crested white with the ash of shattered worlds.

He looked into the black and narrow mouth of the Gates of Death, and the primitive ape-thing within him cringed and moaned, oppressed by a sense of fate. By this means and that he had been led across half a world to stand here with the talisman of a long-dead king in his hands. If things went as he supposed they would, he would soon be following the footsteps of that long-dead king into whatever strangeness might lie beyond that doorway—a strangeness, perhaps, that spoke with little spidery voices…

He shook with the memory of those voices and fought down a strong desire to take off the belt and drop it outside the Wall. He reminded himself of how he had ridden toward Kushat, looking up at the pass and lusting after the power that he might find there, power to destroy Ciaran of Mekh, and he laughed, not with any very great humor, at his own inconsistency.

He said to Balin, “Camar told me that Ban Cruach was supposed to have gone back through the Gates of Death at the end. Is that true?”

Balin shrugged. “That is the legend. At least, he is not buried in Kushat.” It occurred to him to be surprised. “Why do you ask that?”

“I don’t know,” Stark said, and turned back to his contemplation of the plain. Diemos touched the horizon. A last gleam of reddish light tinged the snow and then was gone.

Thanis pressed closer to Balin for warmth, looking uneasily at Stark. There was a sort of timeless patience about him. Balin was aware of it, too, and envied him. He would have liked to go back down where there were warmth and comfort to help the waiting, but he was ashamed to. He was cold and doubtful, but he stayed.

Time passed, endless minutes of it. The sentries drowsed over their braziers. The plain was in utter darkness under the faint, far northern stars.

Stark said, “Can you hear them?”

“No.”

“They come.”

His hearing, far keener than Balin’s, picked up the little sounds, the vast inchoate rustling of an army on the move in stealth and darkness. Light-armed men, hunters, used to stalking wild beasts in the snow. They could move softly. But still they made a breathing and a stirring, a whispering that was not of the wind.

“I hear nothing,” Balin said. And Thanis shook her head, her face showing pale from the folds of Balin’s cloak.

Again they waited. The westering stars moved toward the horizon, and at length in the east a dim pallor crept across the sky. The plain was still shrouded in night, but now Stark could make out the high towers of the King City, ghostly and indistinct. And he wondered who would be king in Kushat by the time this unrisen sun had set.

“You were wrong,” said Balin, peering. “There is nothing on the plain.”

“Go kick that sentry awake,” Stark told him, and strode off to rouse the other one. The man snarled at him and Stark straightened him up with a rough hand, pushing the brazier over into the street below. “There is something out there that you should see,” he said.

Swiftly now, in the thin air of Mars, the dawn came with a rush and a leap, flooding the world with harsh light. It flashed in cruel brilliance from sword-blades, from spearheads, from helmets and burnished mail, from the war harness of beasts. It glistened on bare russet heads and on coats of leather, and it set the banners of the clans to burning, crimson and gold and green, bright against the snow.

For as long as a man might hold a breath there was no sound, not a whisper, in all the land. Then the sentry turned and ran, his iron-shod boots pounding on the stone. A great gong was set up on the parapet. He seized the hammer and began to beat the alarm, and the sound was picked up all around the circumference of the Wall where other gongs added their brazen booming.

Out among the tribesmen a hunting horn sent forth one deep cry to split the morning. The wild skirling of the mountain pipes came after it, and the broken thunder of drums, and a wordless scream of exultation that rang back from the Wall of Kushat like the very voice of battle.

The men of Mekh began to move.

They came slowly and raggedly at first, the front ranks going at a walking pace that quickened and quickened as the press of warriors behind them pushed forward, until all at once they were running and the whole army began to break and flow, and the barbarians swept toward the city as water sweeps over a broken dam.

They came in knots and clumps of tall men, running like deer, leaping, shouting, swinging their great brands. Riders spurred their mounts until they raced with bleeding flanks and their bellies to the ground. There was no order, no array of neat and studied ranks advancing according to a plan. Behind the runners and the riders came more and more men and beasts until they became indistinguishable as such and were simply a motion, a tossing and rushing and trampling that shook the ground.

Ahead of them all came a solitary figure in black mail, bearing a sable axe and riding a tall beast trapped all in black.

Stark became aware that he was leaning far over the parapet and that Balin was trying to pull him back. “Did you have some idea of single combat?” Balin asked, and Stark stared at him, and Balin drew back, away from him. “One favor, friend. Don’t become my enemy, please—my nerves would never stand it. But your turn against Ciaran must come later.”

He pointed along the parapet where soldiers were running toward them, shouting at them to get off the Wall. Stark shrugged and followed Balin back down the steps and then up another set to the roof of the building. Thanis followed them, and they clambered out over the cold slates to watch. And again Stark was withdrawn into his stony patience, but only when Ciaran was hidden from him did he take his eyes off the black helm.

Kushat had come violently to life. The gongs still bellowed intermittently. Soldiers had begun to pour up onto the Wall. There seemed to be very many soldiers until their numbers were balanced off against the numbers of the barbarians and the length of the Wall. Mobs of citizens swarmed in the streets, hung out of windows, filled the roofs. A troop of nobles went by, brave in their bright mail, to take up their posts in the square by the great gate.

“What do you think now?” asked Balin softly, and Stark shook his head.

“This first attack won’t carry. Then it depends on whether Ciaran is leader enough to hold his men at the Wall.” He paused. “I think he is.”

They did not speak again for a long while.

Up in their high emplacements the big ballistae creaked and thrummed, hurling boulders to tear great gouges in the flesh and bone of the attackers. From both sides the muted song of the horn bows became a wailing hum, and the short bone arrows flew in whickering showers. Slingers rattled their stones as thick as hail. War was a primitive thing here in the Norlands, as it was now over all of Mars except where the Earthman’s weapons had been brought in, not for lack of ingenuity but for lack of metal and chemicals and power. Even a drained and dying world could still find hide and stone and bone and enough iron to forge a blade, and these simple, ancient ways were efficient enough. Men fell and were carried or kicked off the ledges by their fellows, and below them the barbarian dead began to lie in windrows. The blood-howl of the clans rang unceasingly on the frosty air, and Stark heard the rap of scaling ladders against stone. And he began to think that he was wrong and this first charge was going to carry after all. The soldiers of Kushat fought bravely, but it was their first and only battle and they were indeed like folded sheep against the tall killers of the mountains.

Still the Wall held. And by mid-morning the barbarian wave had beaten its strength out on the black stones. The men of Mekh grew silent and moved sullenly back across the plain, carrying their wounded with them, leaving their dead behind.

Thanis said, “You see, Stark? The Wall—the Wall protects us.” Her face was drawn and over-bright with hope. “You see? They’re going away.”

Stark said, “They have left their dead. Among the tribes I know, the men of Kesh and Shun, this is a pledge that they will return. I would guess that these have the same custom. And look there.” He pointed out across the plain. “That black banner with the lightning stroke. That is Ciaran’s standard, and see how the chiefs are gathering to it.”

Looking at the thinned ranks of the soldiers on the Wall, Balin said, “If this is victory, one is all we can afford.”

But the city screamed with joy. People rushed into the streets to embrace the soldiers. The nobles rode the circuit of the Wall, looking well pleased. And on the highest tower of the king’s hall a crimson banner shook out on the wind.

Stark said to Thanis, “Bring us food, if you will. There’ll be little time later on.”

She said fiercely, “I don’t believe you, Stark. They’re beaten.” But she went and brought them food. The sun rose higher, and they waited.

A little after noon the barbarian army began to move again. It split itself into three spearheads, with a fourth body of men in reserve. Two spearheads launched themselves at two widely separated segments of the Wall, while the third simply waited. And Stark nodded.

“This is what Ciaran should have done at first. But barbarians are independent and have to be crushed once before they’ll listen. Now we’ll see. And the nobles had better get their reserves on the Wall.”

The reserves came, running wildly. The forces of the defenders divided themselves raggedly and rushed to the two threatened points to repel the tribesmen already swarming up their ladders onto the parapet. Now the rest of the Wall was only thinly guarded.

The third barbarian spearhead hurled itself at the great gate.

Now the city was silent again except for the noises of battle. And Thanis said abruptly, “What is that—that sound like thunder?”

“Rams,” Stark answered. “They are battering the gate.”

He became very restless, watching as the officers tried to meet this new danger with their increasingly inadequate forces. The party attacking the gate was well organized. The sweating red-haired giants who swung the rams were protected by shield-men who locked their long hide shields together overhead to form a roof, warding off missiles from above. Other shield-men knelt to provide cover from behind which bowmen and slingers could sweep the Wall. Out on the plain, by the black standard, Ciaran waited with some of the chiefs and the impatient body of reserves, who were beginning to howl and cry like hounds chained up in sight of the hunt.

Stark said to Balin, “It would be better if you went now. Take the talisman, gather your men…”

Balm struck his fists down hard against the slates. “Not one man will leave Knshat without fighting for it.” He glared angrily at Stark, who shrugged.

“Their chance is coming.” He nodded to where press gangs were starting to beat the Quarter for men. “Let’s go and meet them, then.” He stood up and turned to Thanis. “You asked me last night to tell you how you could fight.” He took off the belt and fastened it around her body underneath her cloak. “Take this, and what food and blankets you can carry, but above all, this. Go and wait for us at the Festival Stones.”

She seemed about to defy him, and he told her gently, “You have the talisman. It’s up to you to see that it’s not taken.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed, and Balin said impatiently, “Will you stand all day?” He kissed her on the cheek and then pushed her bodily ahead of him off the roof and down the stairs. As they passed the door of the room he added, as though to make sure she understood, “And wait. Someone will come.”

He ran on past her, down the steps. Stark smiled and said, “Be careful.” He followed Balin. At the foot of the steps he glanced back and she was gone inside the room, taking with her Camar’s belt and the talisman. He felt light and free, as though he had been relieved of a heavy stone.

They joined a thickening flow of men who needed no urging from the press gangs to go and fight for their city. Balin ran beside Stark, and his face was so set and white around the lips that Stark said, “When you run the first one through and he screams, and you reflect upon your mutual humanness, remember that he came here of his own free and greedy will to kill you.”

Balin snarled at him. “Thanks, but I don’t expect to have that trouble.”

“Nevertheless,” said Stark, “you will.”

The weapons of the dead and wounded soldiers were heaped together in piles to supply the citizenry. Stark and Balin armed themselves and went up onto the Wall.