THE BURNING GATE

Rokál shouts a warning!

He sees it with his mystic eyes: above, an invisible ward, suddenly sparkles like a radiant nerve and convulses into life! On the outer wall, trumpets blast! Men with spears and slings turn from battle and begin racing toward the companions.

Cusáhn cries, "Vivict! Up, now!"

Rokál grabs Cusáhn by the shoulder, "Fool! Who will ground the wyvern if he does not first retrieve that harpoon!" He calls down, "Vivict! How long on those barbs?"

By way of answer, Vivict kicks the tiger and snarls.

"None too soon then," Rokál mutters. A slingstone explodes against his helm. He continues unfazed, "Let us hold the bridge, guardsman, you and I. With that blade of yours, I cannot say you're useless in a fight!"

Cusáhn, however, sheathes his spark-edged blade, unstraps the sword-belt, and throws the weapon to Viványa, who catches it by the hilt. With two sizzling blows, she frees the harpoon, then hurls her grappling hook up the wall. Cusáhn catches it and cries, "UrokYann! Hoist him up!"

Ulto grimaces; their responses are swift indeed; she must press them harder still. "This way!" she cries, dashing down the wall-walk, and passing beneath the teeth of the red-hot gate. Inside, she triggers a secret switch, and the portcullis begins to rumble down, slow and heavy as a continent, to block the comrades' retreat. Tzark sees it and shouts a warning to the others, then bolts after Glaneir, lest his lack of armor make him an easy mark for the slings.

Meanwhile Harrin is locked in a ranged battle against a dozen of the enemy, and UrokYann is hauling Vivict up hand-over-hand, while Rokál, with his blue-glittering blade, and Cusáhn, with a sword borrowed from Harrin's sheath, drive off the first of the spearmen. But behind those scattered troops come disciplined ranks of armored men, five abreast and twenty deep, helms gleaming over solid shield-walls—a phalanx, an army, impossible for the seven comrades to destroy.

A slingstone slams against the gauntlet of UrokYann. With a yell he fumbles the rope, and it drops from his stunned fingers. Viványa claws at the cracks between stones but slips and plummets, grabbing at the falling rope, which UrokYann snatches and clamps between his teeth, untrusting of his benumbed fingers. Viványa halts, swinging—and then begins laughing, feet kicking among the ferns.

The first rank of soldiers grinds into Cusáhn and Rokál, who are forced to give ground.

"Cusáhn!" Glaneir screams, "The gate is down to its last yard! You must fall back! Leave Vivict to his fate!"

Cusáhn darts a glance at the portcullis. "Harrin! Take the shields of the slain riders. Prop the gate!"

Ulto chews her thumbnail in frustration as Harrin flies to the task. Meanwhile Cusáhn, seeing that he and Rokál are unable to slow the enemy, drops back to help UrokYann with the rope. There, he sees Vivict climbing with horrific slowness, barely halfway up the wall.

Cusáhn calls down, "Are you wounded?" Viványa shakes her head, and Cusáhn realizes that after falling, the pirate no longer trusts the rope, and is climbing without the aid of UrokYann.

Cusáhn seizes the line and shouts over a hail of slingstones, "Vivict, climb the rope! The enemy is here!"

Viványa pauses, uncertain. Desperately Cusáhn shouts, "I vow to you I will die before I let it fall!"

She seizes the rope and climbs, and the two men heave her up at running speed. Nearing the top, she takes UrokYann's hand and swings onto the walk, not ten paces from the enemy, and unarmored but for a chain shirt amid a clattering storm of slingstones.

The four comrades hurl themselves toward the gate. Viványa, fastest in her light armor, is followed by the sheltering wall of UrokYann. Far ahead, Harrin's shield-props are buckling beneath the biting maw of the portcullis, rivulets of melting shieldmetal dripping onto the stonework, dazzling bright.

Harrin sees it: the shields will never hold. Already he has removed his own breastplate and added it to the props, and it too is melting. His comrades will not make it. Through the gaps in the portcullis, he sees Vivict flying toward him, drawing the spark-edged sword—but even if that blade can saw through the gate's enchanted steel, what difference will that make if there is no time to make the cuts? The enemy is marching at a rapid tempo; Harrin's comrades will soon be crushed against the sizzling bars.

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Glaneir sighs with genuine remorse. "A great shame to lose all four…"

Harrin removes his helm. He unbinds his wife's token, folds it carefully, and sets it aside in a safe, clean place. He lies down on his back with his head beneath the closing portcullis, and wedges the helmet between two of the searing teeth, as a barrier to guard his hands from the red-hot metal. Then, with every particle of his strength, he lifts.

Beside him, Viványa rolls through to safety.

Immediately, she doffs her chain mail and positions it to create a bank of heavy iron between Harrin's head and the slingstones. The spark-edged sword, she wields against the gate—in vain!—it shrieks and smokes, but cuts little.

Harrin's helmet too is beginning to smoke. His face is purpling. UrokYann crawls through to safety.

Outside, a slingstone strikes Cusáhn behind the knee and he crashes down on the masonry. Rokál hears his fall and turns back. He sees the enemy, made bold by the downfall of their mighty foe, break ranks and charge.

Rokál knows he could never hope to outrun them while bearing Cusáhn, and he believes that the lawman, a comrade tonight, will be an enemy on the morrow. Yet honor compels him. He sprints away from the gate, his armor crackling with sling-fire, and—as onrushing foes swarm over the fallen Cusáhn—he slams into them! Without ordered ranks, without shield-walls, the fight is one of chaos and mettle and mastery of the blade, and Rokál devastates the foe, sending them reeling, soldiers scrambling backward hastily to reform their protective ranks, and in that moment of respite, Rokál flies to Cusáhn, heaves him up over one shoulder, and makes a final dash for the gate.

The molten teeth are closing on Harrin's trembling arms, descending mercilessly toward his head. His hands are smoking. He shouts for courage through the pain.

Rokál, struggling under the guardsman's weight, staggers toward the gate, and as he reaches it, the massed enemy overtake him! He throws Cusáhn down and turns to fight the troops clawing and hammering at his armor. UrokYann reaches under the portcullis and drags Cusáhn through, while Rokál, finally borne down under a landslide of blows, crashes onto his back, and instantly kicks against his enemies' shins, scrambling backward under the broiling portcullis and into the Tower. Then Viványa and Tzark, grabbing Harrin's legs, heave him inside. Without Harrin's strength, the shield-props collapse. The enemy roars against the bars, clanging, fighting for space to whirl their slings.

The companions flee, staggering and steaming and leaning on each other, down a blind corridor, away from the slingstones already beginning to whistle between the bars.

Around a corner they stumble, through a doorway opened by one of Ulto's silver keys—and straight into a gang of four-armed slaves wielding scimitars. But the combat is short: Rokál and Viványa charge among them with a spark-edged onslaught and a hell-throated roar, and the slaves take flight. The comrades tumble down against the wall to catch their breath.

Tzark, panting, asks, "Can those troops open the gate?"

"No," Glaneir says, not panting in the slightest, "If there is a way for us slaves to govern the enchantment, I do not know it."

Rokál warns, "It was an enchantment that raised the alarm against us! And just before it, I glimpsed a flare of sorcery, in the distance at the alchemist's tower."

The comrades fall silent, and there is only the sound of warriors catching their breath, and of the enemy clamoring distantly outside the gate. Finally, Tzark says, "Mathras… He did not strike me as the traitor type. Pity."

"A mishap, I judge, not treachery," Glaneir suggests. "Regardless, it behooves all of you to follow my guidance more closely now that some wards may be active. Cusáhn—"

But Cusáhn is occupied tending to Harrin, whose palms are fused with the metal of his helm, and whose face is discolored with blood vessels that have burst. Nor is Cusáhn the only one caring for the wounded man: Viványa is standing guard over him in the manner of a mother wolf, and UrokYann is bathing his burns and forehead, with infinite gentleness, in water from a canteen.

Cusáhn asks, "Glaneir, your wand raised the wind. Is there no way you can help this worthy man?"

Glaneir hesitates, calculating, then brings out the wand. "Never did I see Ulto heal a wound. Such spells may not even be possible with the arts studied in this Tower. However…" She waves the wand, and pretends at first to fail, feigning inexperience, then succeeds. Flesh and metal flow, as thick as syrup, beneath her fingers. The steel of the helm drizzles down and flows away. Only what has fused to Harrin's hands remains, giving him palms of metal, mirror-smooth. Glaneir warns, "Nothing is mended. There will be swelling and great pain, but your hands will serve you as before, and you can catch a blade at need."

Harrin coughs his thanks, and Rokál offers him the flask of rum. Gingerly, Harrin holds it in his fingers, which are largely intact. He asks, "Did anyone—" he coughs. "—happen to bring my scarf?"

The comrades glance at one another. Tzark's heart goes out to Harrin, without whom much might have been lost. "I can find it," he promises. "The slingers will never catch sight of me."

"Oh," Glaneir assures them, dismissive, "it is only a strip of cloth, nothing magical."

Tzark vanishes down the hall, leaving Ulto to conceal her anger at being ignored. The others turn their thoughts toward Harrin, offering to let him rest in safety while they finish the raid, and vowing, in their gruff way, to rescue his children. But Harrin, with many thanks, shakes them off and struggles back to his feet, determined to go on. "What about the rest of you?" he asks. "Is it possible for all of us to continue, or have some taken too many wounds?"

The comrades assess their hurts, and indeed, the as-yet unsuspected treachery of Ulto has done great harm, not only in wounds, but in armaments lost. Destroyed are the helmet and breastplate of Harrin, and his ammunition is spent. Lost is the great mace of UrokYann, the chain mail of Viványa, and two of her javelins. As for injuries, beyond Harrin's swelling palms, Cusáhn now limps, and UrokYann cups a hand over a sling-wound in his neck.

The gloom of the corridor echoes hauntingly, as Ulto whispers, "No matter our wounds, there is no way out now." She takes an audible breath. "We have dared to enter a terrible place. Who knows what we may face before the end?"

"Mostly treasure, I imagine," says Tzark, as—grinning for reasons unknown—he seems to materialize from behind Glaneir, holding Harrin's scarf, which he returns.

Cusáhn climbs to his feet. He has lit the lantern built into his shield, and says, "Let us go onward. We are resolved."

"In that case," Ulto answers, "you must all follow me precisely. For only I know the way between the wards." So saying, she takes the lead and strides into the dark, and they follow.

All but Tzark, who has stolen Ulto's keys.