Then he clamped his jaws shut, trying not to breathe, as the Western wind howled in, hurling the fog out toward the enemy, and revealing the malvoisin, only a few yards from the wall. A knight stood in the doorway at the top. His knees buckled as a tag end of fog coiled into his helmet, then he fell forward, hurtling down. The enemy line filled with a single, roaring cough as the gas attack hit. But even as it struck, the fog thinned, faded, disappeared-and the malvoisin rolled forward the last few feet, almost touching the wall itself.
The boarding ramp fell down, and arrows began to plummet from the top. Swords rang, footmen fell, and the parapet ran red.
The defenders were forced onto the defensive, being driven back toward the stairway, though every inch was bought with blood.
Now, what would stop these enemy soldiers? Most of them were here only because they'd been forced to it. What could buy them off?
Gold, of course. Matt shaped his spell on that idea.
The attackers shouted in horror as every, bit of steel and iron about them turned to gold - pure gold. The Moncairean knights and soldiers shouted triumph as their steel cleaved through golden armor like hot knives through margarine. The attackers howled and turned, trying to jam back into the malvoisin en masse. But the ramp was narrow, and there were six feet of open space between malvoisin and wall, enough for ten or twenty men to plummet screaming to their deaths before the last footman could scramble back over the ramp. Footmen braced their pikes and heaved, pushing the malvoisin away from the wall; and knights stalked the battlements again, intoning conditional absolution and plunging their swords into the wounded.
The sounds of a howling, cursing brawl came from the malvoisin, like a congregation of fishwives. The whole structure trembled.
"What broil is that?" the abbot growled.
"The enemy." Sir Guy grinned. "They squabble over treasure. Yet 'ware; look down." He pointed. Matt, and the abbot craned their necks, looking down over the wall, to see fresh troops running into the bottom door of the malvoisin.
"Max!" Matt bellowed, and the Demon hung before him in the air. "Aye, Wizard?"
"Upgrade the entropy on that firetrap." Matt pointed at the malvoisin.
"Aye," the Demon chortled, and winked out.
"What was that spell?" the abbot demanded.
"Watch." Matt's eyes glittered.
The malvoisin gave a long, preliminary groan; then, with a roar, the whole structure fell apart, beams crumbling into dust as they fell.
"Dry rot," Matt informed the abbot. "Accelerated."
A ten-foot heap of wood dust lay before the gate, filled with struggling, shouting troops.
"Scald!" the abbot called out, granite-faced. "Wash this dust away!"
Two knights upended a hundred-gallon kettle. Boiling water gouted down into the dust-heap. The enemy soldiers screamed, leaping out of sudden mud, landing running. But some of them only made about ten feet before they fell; and some never even got out of the dust pile.
"Archers!" the abbot bellowed, and arrows leaped down from the battlements to turn the fallen into pincushions, while the abbot recited the conditional absolution.
"A horrible end," he growled then, "but we could not have them there, upon our gate. Yet most shall live."
The last few golden-armored men staggered back into the enemy lines. They'd barely gotten there when knots of howling struggle erupted all along the line as footmen and knights alike fought over golden armor, swords, and pike heads.
"'Twill be some time ere they restore order." The abbot leaned back, lifting his helmet to wipe his brow. "We have some breathing space, I think. Brother Thomas! What's the hour?"
"The eighth of the night, milord," a brown-robe shouted back.
"An hour left till dawn." The abbot secured his helmet again. "Prepare yourselves, good knights! They'll not give us overlong to rest!"
But it was long-ten minutes went by, then fifteen.
Matt bit his lip. The enemy only had forty-five minutes left. What were they cooking up that took so long and could be worth the time when there was so little of it left?
His answer appeared, only a hundred feet away from the wall, diminished by distance - but her body glowed in the dark, and every detail was crystal-clear, the more so because she was nude.
All the defenders stared, transfixed.
Matt couldn't see her face too well, but her body was the most voluptuous he'd ever seen, fairly reeking of desire and secret, almost unbearable, pleasures. She stood turned three-quarters toward the monastery, long black hair flowing down over shoulder and breast, looking up at the wall sidelong.
Then most of the knights tore their eyes away, squeezing them shut, bowing their heads over clasped hands, and mouthing prayers as if they were racing to see who could finish the Rosary first.
"Lord above!" A black-bearded knight near Matt shuddered. "'Tis Anastaze -- she whom I wronged, who slew herself, ere I came here repentant! Dear Lord, what have I done, to put her in the mouth of Hell?"
"'Tis not your lass!" the abbot boomed, clasping the man's shoulder. "'Tis a succubus from Hell! Or a foul glamour, made to look like one you knew! Up, away! Get you to the chapel! Pray! You cannot stand 'gainst this enemy!"
The knight rose and turned, stumbling past the abbot to the stairway.
"Mother of God!" a young knight at Matt's right breathed. "Lord above, save me!" His eyes fairly bulged.
"Why, then!" Sir Guy clapped him on the shoulder. "You came a virgin to this place? Nay, be proud! It lends you greater power, in such a war as this! Come, lad, shield your eyes and pray!
There's nothing nearer Heaven than a true, good woman; but there's nothing farther than yon succubus!"
Succubi, he should have said - for there were many of them now, sauntering past the wall in a languorous parade.
The young knight hid his eyes and began to pray.
"Hold firm!" The abbot clasped his shoulder. "Each temptation refused gives greater strength to withstand the next!"
Matt looked up; all along the battlements, odd knights were stumbling toward the stairways - more casualties than any other single attack had taken. But most of them watched without flinching, with chilled eyes. Each man's lips moved in silent syllables of prayer; they stood with arrows nocked, or swords half-drawn, charged with tension, waiting for an enemy to strike at.
But the auxiliaries were another matter.
"By Heaven!" a baron's knight gasped, "see you not yon damsel? Nay, I've never seen a wench so fair! Come, we must have at them!"
"Hold!" The nearest Moncairean clasped the knight's forearm in a grip of iron. "They are but fell illusions!"
"Then let me die in dreams," a footman cried. "Nay, brothers! See you not those lips, those hips, that tumbling hair? What beauty's there!
"I must have one!" another gasped, and started toward the outer wall at a stumbling ran. The Moncaireans turned to catch him. Hoarse shouts sounded all along the wall as a hundred others followed his lead. Shouting erupted, and the ringing of steel on steel.
"Nay, nay!" cried one lay knight, twisting and writhing in the monk-knights' grasp. "I must to them, must touch them! Nay, my manhood will mock me till my death, if I go not to them!"
"And your death will mock you to your manhood," the Moncairean growled. "You forget a hundred feet of empty space beyond that wall."
"Then let me die in ecstasy!"
"And fry in Hell," the other Moncairean grunted. "Yon's a succubus."
"Men!"
The single word cut through the clamor, flat and harsh, charged with woman's most stinging contempt. The fighters looked up, startled.