The Drawing of the Dark

The one-eyed man raised a hand, and the wind came up behind him, tossing his gray locks; then he brought the hand forward in a spear-casting gesture, and with the wind the Western force moved forward, gathering speed and sweeping toward the black tent. Running effortlessly in the front rank, Duffy heard the sound of hoof beats mingled with the thudding of boots, and he caught too the flapping of wings and a soft drum-beat of great running paws.

For Duffy the battle that followed was mainly a confusion of quick, unconnected images and encounters. He clove in half a huge, beating butterfly-thing, between the wings of which was a woman's face, mouth agape to sink long teeth into him. A grossly fat, bald man with thick snakes for arms seized Duffy and moaned in wide-eyed imbecility as he began to constrict the Irishman's breath away; he became silent only when a glowing-eyed cat shape had surged past and with one swipe of powerful jaws snapped the bald head off. At one point Duffy faced one of the four tall Turkish warriors who had stood out in front of the assembled Eastern host - the man's left hand, though as mobile and quick as his scimitar-wielding right, was a brassy metallic color and rang like a dagger when he used it to parry Duffy's blade; the Irishman finally managed to sever the arm at the elbow; and when Duffy had delivered the final, beheading stroke, the golden hand was still moving, crawling on the ground like a spider.

Things with the heads of crocodiles contended with dwarfs perched one atop another to form an adversary of conventional height; men enveloped in roaring yellow flames rushed here and there, seeking to embrace their enemies; hollow-eyed corpses lurched past, pulled along by animated swords as pliant as snakes; and, above even the winged warriors that battled with scimitar and long-sword high overhead, impossibly tall, luminous figures -could be glimpsed rushing across the sky.

Finally Duffy burst through the far side of the seething press. Glancing around he saw that six of the northmen were still with him. Bugge grinned at him as they trotted in to re-group. Less than a hundred yards in front of them stood the circular tent of black cloth, flapping like a big, crippled bat on the moonlit plain. Even as Duffy caught his first clear glimpse of it, part of the drapery flipped back and half a dozen turbanned men, back-lit in eerie blue, stepped out of the tent, drew gleaming scimitars and waited grimly for the attack to arrive.

In ten seconds it did, and two of the Turks fell immediately, chopped nearly in half by the northmen's swords; the other four handled their crescent blades skillfully, but refused to give ground or retreat to the flank, and so were each inevitably engaged by one man and run through by several others. Before Duffy could even get in a lick the Turk guards were dead, while his own crew had suffered nothing worse than a nicked forearm or two.

'Come out of your boudoir, Ibrahim, and share the fate of your boys!' yelled Duffy, leaping forward and with a whirling slash cutting the tent flap across the top.

The cloth fell away - and a shape out of nightmare stood, turned, and stared incuriously down at him. It seemed to have been crudely chiselled out of coal, and its face was twisted and distorted as if it had spent centuries under powerful, uneven pressure. Muscles like outcroppings of rock ridged its shoulders, and a shrill, grating yell trumpeted from its mouth as its blunt-fingered hands reached for the man.

Duffy fell over backward like an axed tree, and, when the thing rushed forward, raised his sword as a man might instinctively raise his arm while a tidal wave curls over him.>'That's 'a real quick-trigger man you've got there, Bluto,' Duffy observed mildly. The ball had struck so close to him that it was clear the man hadn't intended to miss.

'He was following orders, damn it,' snapped Bluto. 'All the sentries have been alerted that a spy was sighted and then lost in the city a few hours ago, and are ordered to stop anyone trying to go over the wall, and bring them, if still alive, to von Salm. I know you're not a spy, Duff, but I don't have any choice - you'll have to come with me.'

In the unsteady moonlight Duffy's eyes measured the distance from his right hand to the gun barrel; with a sideways lunge he might be able to knock it out of line. 'I'm sorry, Bluto,' he said. 'I can't.'

'It wasn't a suggestion. Brian,' the hunchback rasped. 'It was an order. To put it bluntly, you're under arrest.' The sentry took a step back, putting him out of Duffy's reach.

The Irishman heard the first notes of the bells of St

Stephen's tolling eleven o'clock. 'Look, Bluto,' he said urgently, 'I have to go out there. A sorcerous attack is building up out there on the plain, and if I, and my party, aren't out there when it starts, then things won't go too well for Vienna. You must have seen enough in the last six months to know that magic is playing a part in this struggle. I swear to you, as your oldest friend, who once saved your life and who carries a certain obligation in trust, that I have to go. And I will. You can permit it or you can have him shoot me in the back.' He turned to Bugge and gestured toward the rope. The Viking stepped up into the crenel, seized the rope and leaned outward, walking down the outside of the wall.

There was a scuffle and thud, and Duffy looked quickly around. Bluto was holding the long gun by the barrel with one hand, and with the other arm was lowering the unconscious sentry to the surface of the catwalk. He looked up unhappily. 'I hope I didn't hit him too hard. I don't know anything about any magic - but go, damn you. I've bought you some time with my neck.'

Duffy started to thank him, but the hunchback was walking away, and not looking back. Soon all the north-men had descended the rope, and Duffy climbed up and stood between the two bulky stone merlons.

As be looped the line behind his thigh and over his shoulder he sniffed the night air and wondered what quality had changed. Had a persistent sound ceased? A prevalent odor disappeared? Then he noticed the stillness of the air. That's what it is, he thought uneasily. It's stopped, the breeze that has blown from the west these past two weeks.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-two

They carried the King over the bridge to the far bank of the canal, lifted him aboard the old ship, got in themselves and then untied all lines. Duffy and three of the northmen used long oars to push the ship away from the bank and into the current, and within a few minutes the high-prowed ship was gliding between the dim, masonry-crowned banks of the Donau, silent under the stark crucifix of its mast. The night air was cold, and smelled of wet streets; Duffy breathed it deeply, savoring the stagnant taint of the lapping water. The northmen stood at the rails, peering ahead into the darkness.

The rains had swelled the Danube, and the offshoot Donau Canal was moving swiftly. Duffy had been afraid they'd have to row to make any speed, with the unavoidable clatter of the oarlocks, but all that proved to be necessary was an oar-butt shoved forcefully against a bank from time to time to keep them from running aground. Soon the high bulk of the city wall had slipped past on their starboard side, and only stunted willows bordered the canal.

Standing to the right of the upswept prow, Duffy carefully scanned the southern bank, trying to look beyond the dark foreground foliage to the silent group he knew was out there. Do they see us? he wondered. Not likely. We're making no noise, they have no reason to believe we even know they're out here, and it's only from the west they'll be looking for possible attacks.

After about a third of a mile the canal began to curve gently to the north, as if prematurely anticipating its eventual re-merging with the Danube, which didn't occur until several miles further south. If Merlin's wall-watchers know their business, the Irishman thought, Ibrahim's party is now due south of us. He turned, hissed to the northmen and signalled them to put in at the southern bank. This wasn't difficult, since the current had been trying for ten minutes to run them aground on that side; the men at the starboard rail simply stopped bracing the oars against the canal-edge, and within a minute the keel raked the mud and the ship canted over toward the bank, stuck fast.

Duffy stepped across the slanting deck to the starboard rail, leaning backward so as not to pitch right over into the canal. Aurelianus came up beside him. 'That jar didn't do the King any good,' the wizard whispered accusingly. 'But he's ready to be carried to the bank.'

'Good. Now listen. I'm going to go over there. When I wave, send Bugge and two others. We'll make sure it's safe. Then when I wave again, the rest of you carry the King across. Have you got that?'

'Yes'

'Very well. See you soon, I trust.'

The Irishman carefully lowered himself over the side, clenching his teeth at the bitter chill of the water swirling around his thighs, and waded to the humped, tree-furred bank. Half peering in the darkness and half groping, he found a quiet way up and then waved back at the ship. Soon three of the northmen were crawling up the muddy slope beside him, shivering and rubbing their legs. Beyond the willows the landscape they faced was nothing but a black horizon of uncertain distance.

A flash of blue light pricked the darkness ahead for a moment then was cut off as if a door had -been shut.

Over the splash and slurry of the water through the reeds Duffy now fancied he could faintly hear chanting voices and the rushing of great wings, and he was suddenly afraid to look up for fear the tattered clouds would begin to form malevolent Oriental faces. The canal at our backs, he thought, connects with the Danube, which stretches far south; has some vast white serpent crawled north along the riverbed from Turkish regions to suck us up now from behind?

Fearfully, he turned to look - - and saw in the dim moonlight the wide-eyed, terror-stark faces of the three Vikings. They must have seen or heard something I missed, Duffy thought, feeling his own fear spiral higher at this corroboration; or else, he thought suddenly, we're all responding to the same thing, which is not an object or a sound, but simply the atmosphere of outre menace that hangs in the still air here like a vapor.