The Drawing of the Dark

scrap metal and gravel had been unbolted from its moorings and was being awkwardly manhandled by a dozen men along the top of the wall toward the jagged edge, where it could be re-positioned to blast its charge down into the massed Turks; but the rain made the use of matchlocks impossible - point and edge were the order of the day, with all the bloody intimacy of hand-to-hand combat.

Duffy charged headlong into one of the peripheral skirmishes that were clogging the wall street to the north of the main fighting. He parried a scimitar and then chopped down into a Janissary's shoulder, and the force of the swing sent him tumbling off the back of the wet horse so that he rode the Turk's body to the ground. Rolling to his feet with the sword he somehow hadn't dropped, he waded into the męlee with wide-eyed abandon.

For ten minutes the battle raged at a maniacal pitch, like a bonfire into which both were throwing every bit of fuel they could find. The culverin was wedged into an adequate position on the crumbled lip of the wall, and two men were hunched over the breech, trying to ignite the charge.

A blade rang off the slightly too large casque Duffy had earlier snatched from the head of a slain soldier, and the helmet skewed around so that one eye was covered and the other blocked by the chin-guard. With a yell of mingled rage and fright, the Irishman ducked his head and dove at his assailant, both his weapons extended. The scimitar edge, being whipped back into line, grated against Duffy's jawbone, but his own sword and dagger took the man in the belly, and Duffy fell to his knees, losing the helmet entirely, as the Turk's body folded. An eddy in the tide of battle left him momentarily in a corpse-strewn clearing, and he knelt there for a moment, panting, before unsheathing his weapons from the Janissary's vitals, struggling to his feet and lurching back into the fight. At that moment the culverin went off, lashing thirty

pounds of scrap into the heaving concentration of Turkish soldiers and killing three of the gunnery men as it tore free of its new mooring and went tumbling away outside the wall.

As if it were one huge organism the Turkish force recoiled, and the Viennese soldiers crowded up to retake every slack inch of ground. Men were still being skewered and chopped and split by the dozens with every passing minute, but the Eastern tide had slowed to a pause and was now ebbing. The European force pressed the advantage, crowding the enemy back into the gap. At last the Janissaries retreated, leaving almost half of their number scattered broken and motionless across the wide-flung heaps of rubble. The rain made their white robes gray.

During the battle Duffy had eventually found himself among Leif's company of mercenaries and stayed with them; when the Turk retreat left the defenders clumped like driftwood on the new stone slope, the Irishman and Eilif were only a dozen feet apart. Eilif was bowed forward, hands clenched on his knees, gasping through a slack mouth, while Duffy sat down on the bright, unweathered face of a split block of masonry. The cold air was sharp with the acid smell of new-broken granite.

Finally Eilif straightened and took off his helmet, letting the rain rinse his sweat-drenched hair. 'That... could have tilted either way,' he panted. 'I don't... like it that fast and hard. There's no control. You can't survive.. .many of those.'

'Spoken like a professional,' commented Duffy, wincing in mid-word at the flash of pain in his jaw. Hesitantly he fingered the gash - the cold rain seemed to have stopped most of the bleeding, but the edges of the wound were far apart, and he could feel fresh air in unaccustomed places.

'Damn it, lad!' exclaimed Eilif, noticing the cut. 'They landed one on you, didn't they? I can see one of your back teeth peeping through. As soon as we get reassembled and take roll, I'll sew that up for you, eh?'

Duffy managed to unclench his sword hand, and the released blade clattered on rock. 'You'll sew it up? No chance - 'Then he looked around and noticed for the first time the appalling casualties the Vienna force had suffered. There were arm-stumps to be cauterized and tarred, jetting wounds to be staunched, crushed limbs to be set and splinted or amputated - the surgeons would be far too busy during the next several hours to attend to so relatively minor a task as sewing up Duffy's jaw.

'Half my boys need plucking from the fire,' Eilif said softly.

'Of course,' Duffy said, trying to speak out of the right side of his mouth. 'I just don't trust your seamstress skills. Look, I think Aurelianus is versed in the surgical arts. What would you think if I trotted back to the Zimmermann and had him stitch me up?'

Eilif regarded him narrowly, then grinned. 'Why not? I'd probably sew your tongue to your cheek. And God knows we can't leave you like this - you'd lose as much beer as you swallowed. In fact, you might be wise to catch a nap there, where there's still a roof.' He pointed. 'Their damned mine collapsed our barracks. Lucky most of us were outside. But I want you back here by midnight, understand? There will be a heavy watch kept here, and I'll oversee our part of it until then.'

'I'll be here,' Duffy promised. He stood up on fatiguetrembling legs, sheathed his sword and began picking his way over the wet, tumbled stones.

By the time he had walked all the way back to the Zimmermann Inn - God knew where the mare had wound up - the rain had stopped and his wound had started to

bleed again, so it was a gruesome figure that finally pushed open the front door and lurched into the dining room. There was a large but silent crowd, and they all looked up fearfully at him.

The black man in the burnoose stood. 'What news?' Duffy didn't relish the idea of a long speech. 'The wall is down at one point,' he said hoarsely. 'It was a near thing, but they were beaten back. Heavy losses on both sides.'

The man who'd asked looked around significantly and left the room, followed by several others. The Irishman paid no attention, but let his blurring gaze waver around the room until he saw Anna.

'Anna!' he croaked. 'Where is Aurelianus?'

'The chapel,' she said, hurrying to him. 'Here, lean on me and -'I can walk.'

The Irishman clumped heavily down the long, dark hall, and when he reached the tall doors he pushed through without stopping, stumbling over a half dozen brooms on the other side. In the chapel Aurelianus stood facing the same seven men that had been there the day before, but today each of them carried a drawn sword.

The midget looked around at the interruption. 'Why it's Miles Gloriosus. Out of here, clown.' He turned back to Aurelianus, extending a short blade. 'Did you understand what Orkhan just said?' he asked, indicating the black man. 'The wall is down. They'll be in by dusk. Lead us to the cask now, or be killed.'

Aurelianus looked indignant, and raised a hand as if he were about to throw an invisible dart at the man. 'Be grateful, toad, that I am at present too occupied to punish this trespass. Now get out of here - while you can.'

The midget grinned. 'Go ahead. Blast me to ashes. We all know you can't.' He jabbed the old sorcerer lightly in the abdomen.

The quiet, incense-scented air of the chapel was suddenly shattered by a savage yell as the Irishman bounded forward into the room, doing a quick hop-and-lunge that drove his sword-point through the midget's neck. Whirling with the impetus, he slashed black Orkhan's forearm to the bone. The copper-skinned man raised his sword and chopped at Duffy, but the Irishman ducked under the

I clumsy stroke and came up with a thrust into the man's belly. Duffy turned to face the remaining four, but one of them cried, 'Why kill Merlin? It's the Dark we want!' The five survivors ran from the chapel, angling wide around Duffy.

As soon as they were running away down the hall he collapsed as if dead. Aurelianus hurried to him, rolled him over onto his back and waved a little silver filigreed ball over the Irishman's nostrils; within seconds Duffy's eyes sprang open and a hand came up to brush the malodorous thing away. He lay there and stared at the ceiling, doing nothing but breathing.

Finally, 'What.. .just happened?' he gasped.

'You saved my life,' the sorcerer said. 'Or, more accurately, Arthur did; I recognized the old battle-cry. I'm flattered that the sight of me in peril brings him out.'