The Drawing of the Dark

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.

That's it, he thought with sudden conviction. Ibrahim is doing this to us. He's set up some kind of wizardly fear-wall around himself to driven away anyone who might interrupt him. With the thought, the Irishman was able to unfasten the terror from his mind and push it away, like a man holding a snake by its throat at arm's length. He forced a soft chuckle and turned to Bugge. 'It's a trick,' he whispered to the trembling northman. 'Damn it, it's magic , it's only a fright-mask hung over the door to keep children from barging in!'

Bugge stared at him without comprehension, and the Irishman repeated the statement in Old Norse. Bugge caught the gist of it, gave Duffy a strained grin and then passed the message on to the other two. They loosened up a bit, but none of the four on the bank looked really at ease.

They scouted up and down the watercourse edge fifty yards in both directions without seeing or hearing any-thing untoward, and Duffy waved again to the ship. By the patchy moonlight he watched the remaining northmen

wade across, four of them holding up, clear of the water, the pallet on which lay the old King.

When they had all made their way into the cluster of willows, Aurelianus crossed to where Duffy was standing. 'The Fisher King is on the field of battle,' he said, quietly but with a savage satisfaction

All at once the oppressive weight of unspecific fear was gone, and Duffy was able to relax the control-holding muscles of his mind. Suddenly he got the feeling that there were more men on the bank with him than he knew of -he turned, but the moon was behind a cloud and the shadows among the willows were impenetrable. Nevertheless he could sense the presence of many strangers, and from a little further down the bank he caught sounds that seemed to be those of at least one boat pulling in to the bank and disgorging silent men in the darkness. There was flapping and a windy rushing in the air, too, and soft swirl-sounds from the water, as of lithe swimmers just under the surface. The air was as tensely still as if they were in the eye of a vast storm, but the willows all up and down the bank were now twisting and creaking.

Bugge came up beside the Irishman, and by a flitting sprinkle of light Duffy looked for signs of heightened fear in the northman's face, but was surprised to see only an eager reassurance. And he realized that these northmen, like his horse when he was, months ago, so eerily escorted through the Julian Alps, could instinctively recognize allies of this sort, while Duffy tended to be blinded by the fears Christian civilization had instilled in him. The Viking touched him on the shoulder and pointed ahead.

The cloud cover was breaking up and clearing, and Duffy could clearly see three tall men waiting on a low hillock. Without hesitation the Irishman strode up the slope to join them while the large but indistinct body of warriors waited along the bank behind him. When he reached the rounded crest the three turned to him with respectful nods of recognition.

The tallest was as massive and gray and weathered as a Baltic sea cliff, and though an eye-patch covered an empty socket, his good eye looked from Duffy's sword to his face, and glittered with an emotion almost too cold and hard to be called amusement. The second man, though just as big, was darker of skin, with a curly black beard and white teeth that flashed in a fierce smile of greeting. He wore a lion-skin? and carried a short, powerful-looking bow. The third was rangier, with long hair and a beard that even in the leaching moonlight Duffy knew must be coppery red. In his fist he held a long, heavy hammer.

The four of them on the height turned to survey the fair-sized host gathered by the bank of the canal, which must somehow have become wilder, for at least half a dozen ships were moored in it - a Spanish carack, a Phoenician galley, even a dim shape that seemed to be a Roman bireme. There was a long sigh, and the limp

banners began to twitch and flap on the masts.

Looking southeast, Duffy could see an equal host gathered around a vast, black tent on the plain, and at the vanguard stood four tall figures in eastern armor.