Nothing happened. The tower of stone rocked slightly, but it did not fall. I sat up and peered down into the dust that rose from the breach. The creature looked up very slowly and saw me. I rolled backward, leaped to my feet, and charged the pile of blocks with all my weight, slamming my shoulder into it. Again, nothing happened; I merely sagged, clutching my shoulder. I heard it coming before I saw it. When I looked down, it was climbing.
It scaled the rubble pile in the breach in under a second with an astonishing, gorilla-like reach and agility. It lunged at me and its claws cut the air inches from my abdomen. I stepped back, but the beast had, for whatever reason, stopped. I peered cautiously over the edge and it looked back at me with eyes that smoldered with hatred and anger. It was clinging to the shattered wall like a great bat, its claws biting deep into the very stone. Apart from a sudden flare of its vast nostrils, it was quite still.
“You obscenity,” I said. “You filthy, twisted aberration! You unholy and unnatural-”
I doubt it understood me, but it leaped at me with a bellow of rage, clawing at me with its hands and splintering the stone where I stood with its horns. I jumped back as the monster reared up, and the great stack of masonry finally began to sway out over the breach. The beast roared again, but now the tower of stones was falling and the monster could not get out of the way. The pile fell as a single unit, a great slab of granite that only broke into its component parts on the creature’s back and shoulders. The earth shook. The beast crumpled, broken by the weight of the stone, and almost filling the breach. Its breath escaped in a last roar that turned into a whine and trailed off into nothing. Then there was silence again.
A chill wind broke over the city wall and, still squatting on the shattered rampart, I shivered, suddenly conscious of the sweat which had broken out all over my body. A coarse, gray dust stuck to me like sand and, when I brushed my arm distractedly, it scraped the skin away. I stood and looked down into the half-filled hole where the dark, almost unbroken skin of the beast was growing pale and indistinct as the same dust settled all over it. Then a wail went up from the goblin force on the beach, a keening cry of confusion, fear, and even-it occurred to me-grief.
Some of them were already scurrying back into their boats; others stood motionless, staring at the giant carcass and considering the odds against their continuing the assault unaided. Then there was a new sound: a blanket of drumming hooves, so many hooves that their individual staccato was lost in a long, unbroken roar. I turned to see a column of horsemen rounding the far corner of the forum and galloping toward me. They wore plate armor and heraldic shields. At their head was Sorrail.
The goblins heard them, too, and their indecision vanished. In seconds they were scrabbling up the slick prows of their war barges, pushing, struggling, and climbing over each other to get in and away. A pair of the larger ones waited, glancing uneasily at the city walls, while the rest boarded. Then they put their shoulders to the slick timbers and shoved the vessels back into the river, all the while shouting over the confused din of the others. As their oars folded out in an erratic wave and began to stab desperately into the water, I turned and raised both arms to greet the cavalry. Relief, gladness, and triumph blended, and I bellowed over the retreating goblins.
SCENE XIII Stranger Still
So the battle was won, and many more goblins fell to our horsemen as they fled into the woods. I say “our,” but I felt like a part of the victory only inasmuch as I was not on the losing side. You might expect that I would be hailed as a hero for playing so instrumental a part in the triumph, showered with honors and wealth, given the keys to the city’s extravagant larder (I couldn’t believe the king and his cohorts ate the tasteless muck we’d been fed so far), and surrounded by beautiful court ladies all anxious to touch my greatness. As you will have realized by now, I am not one to let minor scruples stand in the way of serious reward, and I was more than ready to sit back and wait for my golden goblet to be filled without pausing to explain that my actions were more self-preservatory than heroic, more accident than valor. I didn’t get the option.
The soldiers who relieved me at the walls were delighted to see the monster fall, but an odd hush came over them when they saw me clinging to the shattered parapets. Sorrail gave me a long silent look and then led the charge on the goblins, his face troubled.
The news of my actions spread round the troops quickly for a while and then, though I wasn’t sure when the change took place, there was a conspicuous lack of interest in my doings. By the afternoon the news was dead and I wandered alone through the marketplace where many soldiers were marching back to their garrisons amidst cheers and applause from the townsfolk. I was ignored. I caught some soldiers talking to each other about how Sorrail had led a unit of crack guardsmen from the king’s palace to pull the stone ramparts down on the invading monster, as if it had been planned that way from the outset. I thought this a bit much, and said so.
“That’s not the way I heard it,” I cut in. “I was under the impression that Sorrail was on the other side of the city and that the monster hadn’t even been seen until one of the Outsiders. .”
“You mean, one like you?” said one of the privates with something akin to contempt.
“Very like me, actually,” I replied, curtly. “Yes.”
“Oh, yes,” said the other, a tall young man with mocking eyes. “I heard that, too. You met the black fiend and wrestled it to death by yourself.”
“Of course not,” I began. “But. .”
“Of course not,” said the young man coldly, “that’s what I thought.”
They turned on their heels and walked away, smiling grimly to each other.
As I was considering this, Garnet and Renthrette appeared.
“Can you believe I’m not even getting credit for this?” I demanded.
“For what?” said Garnet.
“My brave defense of the city!” I said. “Who do you think dumped ten tons of quarried stone on that goblin wall-crusher? Who do you think stalled the enemy as they boiled around the walls and leveled their hellish champion moments before victory was assuredly theirs?”
“Sorrail,” said Renthrette, with a shrug that suggested she thought I was joking around and found it only mildly amusing at best.
“No, I’m serious. It was me. Sorrail was with you lot at the front.”
“Only for a short time,” said Garnet. “Then he led his men to encounter the horned beast at the breach.”
“But it was dead by then!” I protested. “I killed it.”
“No, Will,” said Renthrette. “You didn’t. You know you didn’t.”
She said it almost kindly. I stared at her.
“I’m sure you tried to help. . ” she began.
“Oh, right,” I said. “I tried to help but failed because I am-you know-incompetent and degenerate. And then Sorrail-who is a hero, virtuous and mighty-showed up to save the day. All hail Sorrail!”
Garnet scowled and looked at the floor.
“Must you always try to belittle whatever you are too unworthy to look upon, Will?”
That little mouthful of acid came from Renthrette’s slim lips. Her eyes held mine and I stood there speechless. She went on. “Sorrail is a man of virtue and valor. I think the very least you could do is give him credit for his victories instead of trying to poach them like some petty thief. But maybe that’s all you are. A petty thief. I thought you were past all that. In the future, if you’re going to lie, at least try to choose something remotely plausible.”
I was too amazed to speak and stood there spellbound as they turned and stalked away as if poles had been jammed up their rears. This made no sense. Not that bit about poles up their rears. That made all the sense in the world. But this erasing me from the story of the battle wasn’t just irritating, it was odd. Bloody odd, in fact, and I was going to get to the bottom of it.