The White Rose



previous |
Table of Contents |
next

Chapter 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 mantas 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.

A human figure writhed in the whale’s grasp, screaming. My
spirits rose. We had done it . . . 

The whale lifted too high. For a moment it raised the Dominator
out of the null.

Deadly mistake.

Thunder. Lightning. Terror on hot hooves. Half the town and a
swath to the edge of the null shattered, scattered, burned, and
blackened.

The whale exploded.

The Dominator fell. As he plunged toward both water and null, he
bellowed, “Sylith! I name your name!”

I loosed an arrow.

Deadeye. One of the best wing shots I have ever made. It got him
in the side. He shrieked and clawed at the shaft. Then he hit
water. Manta lightning made the river boil. Another whale dropped
and shoved tentacles beneath the surface. For a long moment I was
terrified the Dominator would stay under and escape.

But up he came, again in a monster’s grasp. This whale,
too, went too high. And paid the price, though the
Dominator’s magic was much enfeebled, probably by my arrow.
He got off one wild spell which went astray and started fires in
the Guards compound. The Guards and tribesmen were closely engaged
nearby. The spell slew scores from both forces.

I did not get another arrow off. I was frozen. I had been
assured that the naming of a name, once suitable rituals had been
observed, could not be stilled by the null. But the Lady had not
faltered. She stood a step short of the edge of land, staring at
the thing that had been her husband. The naming of the name Sylith
had not disturbed her at all.

Not Sylith! Twice the Dominator had named her
wrong . . . Only one left to try. But my grin
was hollow. I would have named her Sylith.

A third windwhale caught the Dominator. This one made no
mistake. It carried him to shore, toward Darling and her escort. He
struggled furiously. Gods! The vitality of that man!

Behind us, men screamed. Arms clashed. The Guards had not been
as surprised as I. They were holding their ground. The airborne
Taken hastened to support them, flinging a storm of deadly
sorceries. Toadkiller Dog was the center of their attention.

Elmo, the Lieutenant, and Silent jumped the Dominator the moment
the windwhale dropped him. That was like jumping a tiger. He threw
Elmo thirty feet. I heard the crack as he broke the
Lieutenant’s spine. Silent danced away. I put another arrow
into him. He staggered, but did not go down. Dazed, he started
toward the Lady and me.

Tracker met him halfway. He set the son of the tree
aside, grabbed hold of his man, started a wrestling match of epic
scale. He and the Dominator shrieked like souls in torment.

I wanted to rush down and tend to Elmo and the Lieutenant, but
the Lady gestured for me to stay. Her gaze roved everywhere. She
expected something more.

A great shriek shook the earth. A ball of oily fire rolled
skyward. The dragon flopped like an injured worm, screaming. Bomanz
had disappeared.

To be seen was the Limper. Somehow he had dragged himself to
within a dozen feet of me without my noticing. My fear was so great
I nearly voided my bowels. His mask was gone. The devasted
wasteland of his bare face glowered with malice. In a moment, he
was thinking, he would even all scores with me. My legs turned to
jelly.

He pointed a small crossbow, grinned. Then his aim drifted
aside. I saw that his quarrel was close cousin to the arrow across
my bow.

That electrified me, finally. I drew to the head.

He squealed, “Credence, the rite is complete. I name your
name!” And then he let fly.

I loosed at the same instant. I could get the shaft off no
faster, damn me. My arrow slammed into his black heart, knocked him
over. But too late. Too late.

The Lady cried out.

Terror turned into unreasoning rage. I flung myself at the
Limper, abandoning my bow for my sword. He did not turn to face my
assault. He just held himself up on one elbow and gaped at the
Lady.

I really went crazy. I guess we all can, in the right
circumstances. But I had been a soldier for ages. I’d long
ago learned you don’t do that sort of thing and stay alive
long.

The Limper was inside the null. Which meant he was barely
clinging to life, barely able to sustain himself, wholly unable to
defend himself. I made him pay for all the years of fear.

My first stroke half severed his neck. I kept hacking till I
finished the job. Then I scattered a few limbs about, blunting my
steel and madness on ancient bone. Sanity began to return. I
whirled to see what had become of the Lady.

She was down on one knee, the weight of her body resting upon
the other. She was trying to draw Limper’s bolt. I charged
over, pulled her hand away. “No. Let me. Later.” This
time I was less startled that the naming had not worked. This time
convinced me that nothing could disarm her. She should have been
gone, damn it! I gave myself up to a long fit of the shakes. The
Taken pounding on the forest people were having an effect. Some of
the savages had begun fleeing. Toadkiller Dog was enveloped by
painful sorceries. “Hang on,” I told the Lady.
“We’re over the hump. We’re going to do
it.” I don’t know that I believed that, but it was what
she needed to hear.

Tracker and the Dominator continued to roll around, grunting and
cursing. Silent pranced around them with a broad-bladed spear. When
chance presented itself, he cut our great enemy. Nothing could
survive that forever. Darling watched, stayed close, stayed out of
the Dominator’s way.

I scooted back to the wreck of the Limper and dug out the shaft
I’d put into his chest. He glared at me. There was life in
his brain still. I booted his head into the trench left by the
dragon’s rising.

That beast had ceased thrashing. Still no sign of Bomanz. Never
any sign of Bomanz. He found the fate he feared, second try. He
slew the monster from within.

Do not think Bomanz peripheral because he kept his head down. I
believe the Dominator expected the dragon to preoccupy Darling and
the Lady those few moments he needed to get shut of the null.
Bomanz took that away. With the same determination and distinction
as the Lady facing her inescapable fate.

I returned to the Lady. My hands had attained their battlefield
steadiness. I wished for my kit. My knife would have to do. I laid
her back, started digging. That quarrel would chew on her till I
got it out. For all the pain, she managed a grateful smile.

A dozen men surrounded Tracker and the Dominator now, every one
stabbing. Some did not seem particular as to whom they hit. The
sands were about gone for the old evil. I packed and bound the
Lady’s wound with material from her own clothing.
“We’ll change this as soon as we can.”

The tribesmen were whipped. Toadkiller Dog was dragging himself
toward the high country. That old mutt had as much staying power as
his boss. Guards freed of the fighting hurried our way. They
carried wood for the old doom’s funeral pyre.



previous |
Table of Contents |
next