Chapter Thirty-Two

Even when they had all contrived to clamber up from the boats that had brought them, the newcomers were no more than six in number, sent against a company of defenders that still numbered nearly a hundred, but these were monsters of a far more extravagant kind than any the defenders had seen before.

They were six-limbed, their hindquarters being reptilian, save for the fact that they had massive stings like scorpions. Their forequarters had the merest hint of humanity about the articulations of their arms, but these were clawed like those of the horned beastmen. Their heads were insectile, with large compound eyes, but their mouths were like circular sphincters from which huge tentacular tongues extended like writhing snakes. They were huge, longer and taller than horses.

These enemies, unlike their predecessors, were silent—which allowed Matthias Vaedecker the opportunity to be heard again.

“Blademen fall back!” he was screaming. “Bowmen, shoot! Flood the fiends with arrows! Now! Now!”

Reinmar had hardly had time to take note of the multifarious stink that had permeated the storehouse during the earlier phases of the fight. His nose had been numbed by the sharp odour of the burning chaff, and while he had been panting with exertion he had been breathing through his mouth. The odour of the ichor shed by the horned beastmen was far less sweet and cloying than the scent of blood, and its malignity had undermined the disgust that normally attached to other odours typical of mortal combat. Reinmar became briefly aware of that obscene odiferous chorus now, though, because it was suddenly compounded and swiftly overwhelmed by something infinitely sweeter—something which immediately put him in mind of the shock he had experienced in the underworld when the riot of the spilled wine of dreams had assaulted his nostrils.

That shock had been further compounded when he had sniffed the nectar from which the wine of dreams was made—and so was this one. Reinmar felt as if he had been struck in the chest by an invisible blade, and that something had reached into his chest cavity to take a taloned grip upon his heart.

Vaedecker was still shouting at the men on the storehouse floor, commanding them to retreat from the things he had called fiends. It seemed to Reinmar that the order ought not to have been necessary, especially as the crossbowmen were already making rapid inroads into their reserves of bolts, but it quickly became obvious that not everyone was capable of obeying. The men who were closest to the monsters moved towards them, not away, and not with any obvious aggressive intent.

Reinmar realised, almost as if he were looking at himself with distant and alien eyes, that he was among the company that was moving forward instead of falling back. He understood well enough, as the cloying odour made his head swim, what must be happening. Here was an animal perfume that was related to the flowery nectar from which the wine of dreams was made: luxurious, entrancing, instantly addictive. Its effects were immediate, although they might well turn out to be transient, but anyone who breathed in enough of the scent would lose their mind to it long enough to rush towards the open arms of the monsters, there to await the ultimate untenderness.

As the captivated men moved helplessly forward, the six massive stings struck out again and again, not striking at them but at those who came to help them and drag them back. The clawed arms occasionally lashed out like skilful sabres, but the serpentine tongues seemed equally avid and almost as dangerous. The strokes administered by the fiends’ tongues were by no means violent—indeed, they seemed lascivious in their delicacy—but they were effective nonetheless. Such lickings did not seem to strike their targets dead but anyone who was touched by the snaking tongues, however lightly, either fell unconscious or lurched stupidly aside, apparently incapable of further intelligent action.

Reinmar wanted to shout to the men behind them that they should let him be and save themselves, but it would have done no good. Sigurd was in service with the Wieland family, and nothing in the world could have persuaded him to retreat while Reinmar was in mortal danger. Sigurd grabbed Reinmar with one arm, while the other dropped the staff and picked up a discarded half-pike.

Reinmar could not help struggling against the restraining arm, and he felt his strength grow as he did so, as the strength of madmen was reputed to do—but Sigurd was a giant and he, when all was said and done, was still a boy. If the monster’s magic was irresistible, so was Sigurd’s resolve, and Sigurd was determined that the monster which had made Reinmar captive could not keep him. As the sting lashed out, so did the half-pike, and it was the exoskeleton supporting the sting that cracked and splintered.

The claws were already scything forward, and Sigurd had not time or space to avoid them. He had to bring both his hands into play then, but as it released Reinmar the giant’s arm spun him round like a top, sending him spinning and sprawling to one side, unable to follow the imperative that had asserted itself upon his mind.

The awful perfume still filled Reinmar’s head, refusing to let any impulse form in his brain but a determination to throw himself at the monster, but the fall jarred and bruised him, and knocked the breath out of his lungs, so that he had no alternative but to lie there like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

In the meantime, Sigurd attacked the monster with all the fury of which he was capable. One claw shattered, and the blade of the half-pike slashed through the creature’s bulbous eye—but the remaining claw clamped itself upon Sigurd’s neck like scissors, and squeezed with terrible force. A lesser man would have been beheaded in a trice, but Sigurd’s neck was as sturdy as the rest of him, and he had a second or two to react. The blade of the half-pike cut again, at the monster’s own neck.

It was the last stroke Sigurd made, but it had all the power of a conclusive blow. As the giant’s windpipe was crushed and the arteries to either side of his neck fountained blood, the loathsome creature that had killed him died in its turn, its horrid head half-severed from its compound body. Reinmar had thought that his inability to move was the worst of his utter subjection to the power of the creature’s vile musk, but now he found that it was not. What was worse, by far, was the alien emotion that exploded in his consciousness as he felt the rush of the fiend’s exultation in the destruction of Sigurd—and, simultaneously, the searing flash of Sigurd’s death-agony.

Like a cockroach deprived of its head the monster did not die immediately, but raced forward like a runaway carriage—but it no longer had the power to do any physical harm.

Alas, the power of its perfume was not so easily dissipated, and Reinmar felt as if the shock of its death was running through him from top to toe like a slow and turgid lightning bolt. The compulsion to hurl himself into the creature’s gaping embrace was gone, but its absence only made his senses reel, and he had to fight with all his mental might simply to remain conscious and to take stock of what was happening within the storehouse.

Within two or three minutes, fifteen or twenty men had been killed or disabled, while only one other attacker had fallen under the hail of crossbow bolts. The bolts had momentum enough to pierce the creatures’ natural armour, but whatever organs they struck within were not sufficiently vital to cause them to fall.

“Spears!” Vaedecker was shouting. “Throw anything that comes to hand—but stand clear! Stand clear, if you value your lives!”

Reinmar judged that Vaedecker’s own position was by no means remote enough, and as the monsters fanned out and rushed forward they moved swiftly enough to ensnare many of those who were trying to obey his order and move away from them. In their hurry to escape, men were bumping into one another and stumbling over fallen bodies. Some still tried to haul their victimised companions to safety, but for every one who succeeded another was captivated.

Still the arrows struck home, three and four at a time, but still the monsters did not fall.

Matthias Vaedecker picked up a spear, and hurled it with all his might at one creature that was heading straight for him. It seemed a do-or-die move, for he had to brace himself to do it, and the creature was scampering forward so swiftly that he had to leave himself within range of its deadly perfume—but the spear struck it squarely in what would have been its breast had that part of its anatomy been human, and the point passed clean through to jut out behind.

Reinmar’s vision was blurring, but there was no mistaking the expression of sheer joy on Vaedecker’s face. He had never seen a man so exultant. Remarkably, it called forth an echo in Reinmar’s captive soul: a renewal of the sensation that had flooded him when his subjection to the first fiend had forced him to share in the ecstatic quality of its murderous delight.

Vaedecker’s spear-thrust had done more damage than even a creature of that kind could take, and the monster collapsed—but it was not dead, and it continued to exude its seductive secretion.

Vaedecker should have moved back, but instead he moved forward, helplessly drawn. The exultation in his face collapsed into fear, with such astonishing alacrity that Reinmar could not help wondering whether exultation was anything more than terror in disguise. Reinmar wanted to get up, to race to the sergeant’s aid no matter how foolish the move might be, but the moment he managed to shift his arm slightly he was overwhelmed by the flood of pure pleasure that drowned his mind all over again and made him helpless.

Had the monster not been hurt Vaedecker might have died immediately, for the sting could have stabbed him—but the muscles controlling the creature’s sting seemed to have lost their power, and its claws were also flat on the ground, sabrelike no longer. All that remained to be faced was the writhing tongue, lashing reflexively back and forth. Reinmar contrived, in spite of his captivity, to fix his eyes on that tongue, and saw that Vaedecker would be drenched by its loathsome saliva within a matter of seconds.

Again, Reinmar struggled to rise, fighting the drug that had laid him low. He told himself that he had already tasted the wine of dreams, and had dreamed in consequence, but that he was not its slave, and that the resistance he had so far exerted against the wine must come to his aid now.

It did not.

It was left to one of Vaedecker’s own men to race forward, hurriedly but purposefully. If his expression was any guide, he too felt a rush of pure joy as he struck at the lashing tongue with his sword, severing it from the dilated mouth and sending it writhing out of harm’s way, like a worm cut by the plough.

That stroke should have saved Vaedecker’s life. In a fairer world, it would have—but there was one more monster yet to be struck down, and its sting was still busy. The creature scrambled over the body of its fallen ally, and while Vaedecker was still falling, unable to take control of his limbs, the point of the sting hit him squarely in the face, slicing through his cheek and into his jaw.

This time, mercifully, there was no echo in Reinmar’s own being; he was allowed the freedom to be anguished as he saw his friend die.

The monster was immediately hit by half a dozen spears and arrows, and it fell no more than ten seconds after its final victim, but Reinmar knew that Vaedecker was finished, and would never rise again. The battle for the storehouse might leave sixty or eighty survivors on Eilhart’s side, who would surely reckon themselves heroes and victors, but neither Sigurd nor Vaedecker would be among them—and that, to Reinmar, was defeat.

The entrancing perfume did not disappear when the sixth and last fiend fell, but its subjective meaning underwent a sudden shift in Reinmar’s fugitive consciousness, utter foulness replacing its seductive force so abruptly that he retched helplessly. He tried yet again to raise himself up, but yet again he failed. This time he lost his vision entirely, and with it any sense at all of time or space. He did not fall unconscious, but he could not locate himself, in the storehouse or within his own body. It was as if he had been snatched upwards to a great height, from which the whole world would surely seem tiny, if only he could see.

When sight of a sort came back, though, all he could see was Eilhart: Eilhart in flames, falling into charred ruins as the heat surrounded him; Eilhart with ogres and ghouls rampaging through its streets, the luckier fraction of its population put to the sword; Eilhart reclaimed by leprous vegetation and slimy vermin, naught but a scar on the land gathered about the stagnant marsh that had been the proud terminus of the Schilder’s trade. It was mere illusion, of course, no more real than that dream-castle in the clouds to which he had climbed after first tasting the wine of dreams.

When he found his body again, it was staggering to its feet, with nothing in its nostrils but the reek of blood and the stink of shit. He shook his head, attempting to clear it, but his vision was still blurred and he could not see where he ought to go, or what it was from which he needed to withdraw. For several seconds he was quite helpless—and then he felt strong arms grab him and draw him away.

There was a voice shouting very close to his ear, but it did not seem to be shouting at him. It was demanding more arrows and more spears, but it had a desperate edge to it that suggested that there were no more crossbow bolts to be fired and too few spears to be hurled. Reinmar’s body continued to resist the demands of his will, but not because he was any longer captivated by an odorous magic. He realised, somewhat to his surprise, that he had simply exhausted his strength. His limbs would not work properly, and his breathing was impossibly laboured. He needed to lie down, to be given a pause in which he could recover, but the battle was still going on, after a fashion. There were no more six-limbed horrors rampaging about the storehouse, scuttling this way and that, but a fair few beast-men still remained, lashing out with their claws and clubs.

“Come on!” the voice said, much clearer now that it was addressed to Reinmar alone. “Got to get you out. We’ve men enough to mop up.”

He was unceremoniously dumped on a floor that seemed to have become incredibly hard, and lay there for several seconds while the man who had helped him—for a moment he wondered whether it might have been Vaedecker, impossible though that was—answered a more urgent need.

The storehouse had become much darker as lanterns had expired or been dashed to the ground, but there was still light enough, when his vision cleared, to see the face that loomed over him when he was shifted on to his back. At first, it seemed like the face of a lovely woman—but then the features shifted and it became the face of a moth like those he had seen in his dream, and in that form, for some perverse reason, it seemed more beautiful still. Then it changed again, abruptly, and became the face of the infantryman who had spoken to Reinmar and Sigurd before the battle began.

That was real, he decided. The other had been illusion.

He felt a pressure pushing against his left leg, and realised that the soldier had taken his blade from his hand and resheathed it for him.

“It’s all right,” the man said, in a voice harsh with strain. “It’s over—here, at least. The corporal wants thirty to stand guard and thirty to go to the square to reinforce von Spurzheim’s position, but you’re in no shape to do either. Rest a while, and then go home, if you can.”

Reinmar struggled to focus his thoughts.

“Vaedecker?” he said, weakly.

“Dead,” the soldier told him. “The giant too. In the morning, they’ll say we won, but we didn’t. We didn’t stop them. No matter how many we killed, we didn’t stop them. You played your part, though, and you’ve survived. Bruised, but not cut—that makes a big difference, when there’s so much danger of infection. When you can walk, go home, but step carefully.”

All Reinmar could say was “Sigurd?”—but the soldier had already answered that question, and it was not the kind of news he was eager to repeat. What he repeated instead was the advice to go home. He was being kind, although he was absolutely right in his estimation that Reinmar was incapable of further exertion.

When he was left alone, Reinmar lay where he was. It took several minutes to work out exactly where that was, but he managed it eventually, and began to measure the distance that extended between himself and the door to the street. There was a mournful hush in the storehouse now, and the odour of smoke in the air—but the smoke had drifted in from elsewhere; the building was not on fire.

Eventually, Reinmar managed to stand up. His limbs were aching and his lungs felt as if they were full of filthy vapour, but he was indeed uncut, and might have been unbruised had he not been dumped on the hard floor so many times.

When he made his way to the door the men to either side of it did not challenge his right to go through it. One of them, indeed, murmured: “Well done, lad.”

The other said: “Be careful. The street’s secure again, but if you’re heading into town you might run across a stray.”

Once he was out in the street the scent of smoke became stronger, but in comparison to what he had recently endured it did not seem foul or dangerous. He had only taken half a dozen steps when he had to pause and lean against a wall, but he could feel reserves of strength of which he had been previously unaware taking possession of his heart and legs.

“Go home,” whispered a voice that he could not recognise, but which seemed very sweet and loving. “Go home and slake your thirst.”

There was no face to go with the voice, although something withdrew into the shadows when he looked around and he felt something that might have been fluttering wings brush his cheek. The strength that was flowing back into him continued to increase, but he became sharply aware of the dryness of his tongue and throat. He looked back along the street and then forward, taking stock of the bodies that lay about the doorway of the storehouse. Only one in four was a well-made human.

Here, as inside the warehouse, his own side had been victorious—but the victory had been costly. Had Reinmar been able to weep, he would have done so, because he felt he knew better than anyone exactly how costly it had been.