The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [48]
His climb was a swift and easy walk, not the laborious, arm-tiring haul he'd feared. In a few hard-breathing moments he was standing on the battlements some sneering Silvertree baron had built, in the midst of a hushed, wary crowd of warriors all peering down into the trees beyond.
A moonlit wood seemed to stretch a goodly way in from the wall, giving way in the end to moonlit spaces-gardens, for pools glimmered here and there, and small, arched stone bridges could be seen. In the far distance rose the dark, bulk of Flowfoam itself, all stone balconies and turrets. A few lights were twinkling in its windows-but the scene before the hungry warriors seemed otherwise empty of awake, aware life.
"This is going to be like butchering babies in their cots," someone muttered, as the growing cluster of Dutchjack's men hefted their swords and tried to measure the distance to the unseen ground below.
"Never say that," someone else grunted sourly. "Whenever I hear those words, it's just before things go wrong. Badly wrong."
"Lultus, you the last?" Mararr asked, and when the wordless growl that meant yes came back to him, he added, "Then swing the rope around-leaving it tied up, just as it is-and toss it down this side of the wall! Move, man!"
"Battle obviously presses us into an urgency I've not noticed a need for," Lultus observed in a deep, sarcastic purr that made more than one man chuckle, as he did as he was bid. "Pray forgive my shortcomings, O bold Mararr."
"Enough chatter," Bloodblade said coldly, before the armaragor of the many shortswords could make reply. "I doubt even an idiot king would use deaf sentries."
"Something's not right," Gurkyn said abruptly, striding towards Duthjack until he found himself about to step onto the point of Naor's ready blade. "I can feel it."
"You can feel it! Well-" someone began jeeringly, but Bloodblade whirled and snapped, "Enough. Something is… not right."
"Aye," Calargh agreed, shaking his own sword as if it were a minstrel's rattle, "I feel it too. It's as if-"
He froze, dropping into a crouch, as fifteen warriors watched him alertly. "The stones," he said suddenly, stamping one of his boots. "They're alive!"
"What?" came from several incredulous throats, but Bloodblade snarled, "No-be still!"
In the silence after his words they all felt it: the slightest of ripples beneath their boots, as if the stones of the wall were breathing, or gathering themselves, in a stealthy shifting of some gigantic muscle, to-
"Off the wall!" Bloodblade snapped. "Jump! Into the trees!"
The battlements erupted into a tumult of rushing, leaping men, sped on their frantic ways by Calargh's sudden scream. Fingers of stone had risen unseen to encircle his ankle; his charge towards the gardens became a headlong topple to the walk along the wall-where his face crashed down into the rising, cruelly piercing fingers of another stone hand. Naor looked back in time to see his fellow bodyblade's face being torn off; as blood burst out across the stones and he opened his mouth for a cry of horror, he was already in the air, crashing down through leaves and branches already dancing in the wake of plunging warriors.
"Three above!" someone gasped, as the thuddings of landings died away and they heard Calargh's blood gurgling forth above them. "What's that?"
"Claws of the Dark One," another warrior cried, pointing at the wall, "What's that?"
The stones were bulging forth, in a shape that looked as if a warrior with sword in hand was striding stiffly forward through a curtain. With the faintest of groans, stone parted from stone-and a warrior was striding forward: a man of stone with blank smoothness where his face should have been. A stone sword swept up to hack, and the lumbering stone knight turned swiftly to face the nearest gaping human warrior.
"Sargh!" Gloun cried. "It's alive!"
"There's another!" Lultus shouted, his voice almost a sob of fear. "Over yon!"
Where his