THE DOOR INTO SHADOW
(Something for Herewiss? Something to make him glad?) (Yes.) She considered her thought carefully before sharing it. (Before I tell you, consider this: When he finds out about it, will he be angry, will he be in pain? If he won't. .) She let the thought rest.
Sunspark looked down at the Reavers, considering care-fully. For all its power, it knew it had much to learn yet about being human. (What are they doing?) it said, audible to the others.
Torve looked at it as calmly as if it had been one of his own people. "Breaking the gates of the town," he said, "to get inside and kill the people, or take their belongings at least."
Sunspark didn't look up from the valley. Segnbora caught its thoughts: Herewiss doesn't care for killing, or for robbing either. He tries to prevent them whenever possible. (And when they've done that? What then?)
"They'll come here and try to kill us, so that no one can stop them from doing as they please in this part of the coun-try," Torve said. (That's done it!) Sunspark said.
Leaping from the battlement in a swift flash of fire, it sent them all staggering back. Segnbora felt her singed face to find out if her eyebrows were still there. Once certain that they were, she looked around hurriedly. Sunspark had vanished. But Harald and Dritt were pointing down at the valley and laughing.
Far down in the depths of air, the group around the batter-ing ram suddenly began to break up. One person after an-other jumped up to beat frantically at smoldering clothes, their yelps of consternation trailing tardily through the air. "Can it manage a whole army, though?" Lang asked uncer-tainly.
Then it was Segnbora's turn to point and laugh, as a bloom of light erupted before the gates, followed by the sound of screaming. The ram — a lopped monarch pine, full of pitch as monarchs are — literally exploded in red-hot splinters and clouds of burning gas. People and ponies were flung in all directions. Then from the explosion site something like a serpent of flame went pouring over the scorched ground. It lengthened and wound right around the walls of Barachael, met its tail and kept on going, coiling around, reaching up-ward. In moments the town was lost behind burning walls, and the huge head of a coiled fire-serpent wavered lazily above Barachael. The confused shrieks and yells of the routed Reavers mingled with the screaming of their ponies. People and animals ran every which way. A roar of amazed laughter and applause went up from the
walls of khas-Barachael.
In response the Reavers, who had moved away from Bara-chael town and toward the keep, raised a chorus of war shouts. But their shouts had a half-hearted sound to them, as if they had other matters in mind. Sunspark was looking down at them with innocent malice, its fiery head swaying like that of a sleepy viper deciding whether to strike.
"What the—!" someone said from a higher parapet. Segnbora glanced up and saw Eftgan and Herewiss looking over the rail at Barachael town, very surprised. "Your idea?" Eftgan said to Herewiss. "No!" he said, grinning down at Sunspark. It stretched up its flame-hooded head and blinked at him good-naturedly. (They had torches,) it said, (and might have burned the town. However, if anybody's going to do any burning around here, it's going to be me.)
Herewiss and Eftgan came down to the battlement together and leaned on the parapet with Freelorn's followers. "I wish that sealing the pass was going to be as simple," Eftgan said.
Freelorn glanced at her. "It really ran be done, then?" Herewiss nodded. "It took me a while to work out the exact method, and it'll take some hours to attune to the mountain properly. . but, yes, I can do it." "And survive?"