Her smile was wan. “I know.” She followed me to the door.
Before I went out I yielded to the final impulse, turned- found her right there, hoping. I hugged her for half a minute.
Damn her for being human. But I needed that, too.
Fifty-Seven
The last day
We were permitted to sleep in, then given an hour to breakfast, make peace with our gods, or whatever we had to do before entering battle. The Great Barrow was supposed to hold till noon. There was no rush.
I wondered what the thing in the earth was doing.
Battle muster came about eight. There were no absences. The Limper drifted around on his little carpet, his path seeming to intersect that of Whisper more often than was necessary. They had their heads together about something. Bomanz skulked around the edges of things, trying to remain invisible. I did not blame him. In his shoes I might have made a run for Oar... In his shoes? Were mine more comfortable?
The man was a victim of his sense of honor. He believed he had a debt to repay.
A drumbeat announced time to take positions. I followed the Lady, noting that the remaining civilians were headed down the road to Oar with what possessions they could carry. It was going to be a crazy road. The troops the Lady had summoned were reported our side of Oar, coming in their thousands. They would arrive too late. Nobody thought to tell them to hold up.
Attentions had narrowed. The outside world no longer existed. I watched the civilians and for a moment wondered what difficulties faced us if we had to flee. But my concern did not persist. I could not worry past the Dominator.
Windwhales took station over the river. Mantas searched for updrafts. Taken carpets rose. But today my feet remained on the ground. The Lady intended meeting her husband toe to toe.
Thanks a bunch, friend. There was Croaker in her shadow with his puny bow and arrows.
Guards all in position, entrenched, behind low palisades, ditches, and artillery. Pennons all in place, to guide Darling’s carefully surveyed ride. Tension mounting. What more was there to do?
“Stay behind me,” the Lady reminded. “Keep your arrows ready.”
“Yeah. Good luck. If we win, I’ll buy you dinner at the Gardens in Opal.” I don’t know what possessed me to say that. Frenzied attempt at self-distraction? It was a chilly morning, but I was sweating.
She seemed startled. Then she smiled. “If we win, I’ll hold you to that.” The smile was feeble. She had no cause to believe she would survive another hour.
She started walking toward the Great Barrow. Faithful pup, I dogged her.
The last spark of light would not die. She would not save herself through surrender.
Bomanz gave us a head start, then followed. Likewise, the Limper.
Neither’s action was in the master plan.
The Lady did not react. Perforce, I let it go, too.
Taken carpets began to spiral down. The windwhales seemed a little bouncy, the manias a little frenetic in their search for favorable air.
Edge of the Barrowland. My amulet did not tingle. All the old fetishes outside the Barrowland’s heart had been removed. The dead now lay in peace.
Moist earth sucked at my boots. I had trouble maintaining my balance, keeping an arrow across my bow. I had one black shaft set to string, the other two gripped in the hand that held the bow.
The Lady halted a few feet from the pit whence we had dragged Bomanz. She became oblivious to the world, almost as if she were communing with the thing underground. I glanced back. Bomanz had halted a little to the north, about fifty feet from me. He had his hands in his pockets and wore a look that dared me to protest his presence. The Limper had set down about where the moat was when a moat surrounded the Barrowland. He did not want to fall when the null swept over him.
I glanced at the sun. About nine. Three hours margin if we wanted to use it.
My heart was setting records for carrying on. My hands shook so much it seemed the bones ought to rattle. I doubted I could put an arrow into an elephant from five feet.
How come I got lucky and got picked to be her buttboy?
I reviewed my life. What had I done to deserve this? So many choices I might have made differently... “What?”
“Ready?” she asked.
“Never.” I pasted on a sickly grin.
She tried to smile back, but she was more scared than I was. She knew what she faced. She believed she had only moments to live.
She had guts, that woman, going on when there was nothing she could win but, perhaps, some small redemption in the eyes of the world.
Names flashed through my mind. Sylith. Credence. Which? In a moment a choice might be critical.
I am not a religious man. But I sped a silent prayer to the gods of my youth asking that it not be me required to complete the ritual of her naming.
She faced the town and raised an arm. Trumpets winded. As though anyone were not paying attention.
Her arm dropped.
Hoofbeats. Darling in her white, with Elmo, Silent, and the Lieutenant all three dogging her, galloped the lane defined by the pennons. The null was to come sudden, then freeze. The Dominator was to be allowed to break out, but not with his power intact.
I felt the null. It hit me hard, so unaccustomed to it was I. The Lady staggered too. A mewl of fear fled her lips. She did not want to be disarmed. Not now. But it was the only way.
The ground shuddered once, gently, then geysered upward. I retreated a step. Shivering, I watched the fountain of muck disperse... and was amazed to see not a man but the dragon...
The damned dragon! I hadn’t thought about that.
It reared fifty feet high, flames boiling around its head. It roared. What now? In the null the Lady could not shield us.
The Dominator fled my mind entirely.
I drew a shaft to its head, aimed for the beast’s open mouth.
A shout restrained me. I turned. Bomanz pranced and shrieked, calling insults in KurreTelle. The dragon eyeballed him. And recalled that they had unfinished business.
It struck like a snake. Flames surged ahead of it.
Fire masked Bomanz but did not harm him. He had taken his stand beyond the null.
The Lady moved a few steps to her right, to look past the dragon, whose forelegs were now free and scrabbling to drag the rest of its immense body loose. I could see nothing of our quarry. But the flying Taken were into their attack runs. Heavy fire-carrying spears were in flight already. They roared down, burst.
A thunderous voice announced, “Headed for the river.” The Lady hurried forward. Darling resumed moving, carrying the null toward the water. Ghosts cursed and pranced around me. I was too distracted to respond.
Mantas dropped in swift, dark pairs, dancing between bolts of lightning loosed by windwhales. The air went crackly, smelled dry and strange.
Suddenly Tracker was with us, muttering about having to save the tree.
I heard a rising bray of horns. I dodged a flailing dragon leg, ducked a hammering wing, looked back.
Scores of ill-clad human skeletons poured from the forest in the wake of a limping Toadkiller Dog. “I knew we hadn’t seen the last of that bastard.” I tried to get the Lady’s attention. “The forest tribes. They’re attacking the Guard.” The Dominator had had at least one ace in the hole.
The Lady paid me no heed.
What the tribesmen and Guard did were of no consequence to us at the moment. We had prey on the run and dared concern ourselves with nothing else.
“In the water!” that voice thundered from above. Darling moved some more. The Lady and I scrambled over earth still rippling with the dragon’s efforts to break free. It ignored us. Bomanz had its entire attention.
A windwhale dropped. Its tentacles probed the river. It caught something, dropped ballast water.