"Hardy, Lyndon- The Master of Five Magics (UC)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hardy Lyndon)

Morwin jumped from his inactivity beside the slowly turning disk and ran through the archway to the chamber beyond. He fetched a tripod with a small clamp attached and returned to where Alodar stood with the splinter still at arm's length. After a few moments of adjustment, the clamp was in position to secure the scrap of wood firmly, and Alodar relinquished bis grip. Massaging his now numb arm, he moved quickly to the edge of the bartizan to see the results of his effort.

He whisked a telescope out from his cape and sighted the basket. It now stood fixed firmly in the sky, suspended

4

directly in front of one of the sheer cliffs that was their target.

"Luck be with him soon," the sergeant muttered as he watched with his own glass. "If he does not find a ledge wide enough for the catapult within the hour, we will strike no blow for ourselves this day. And tomorrow may be too late for any scheme, sound or foolish, to prevent a breach."

Alodar turned from watching the rider scramble onto the face of the cliff and looked at the plain below.

"They will be in the bailey within two days for certain," the sergeant continued. "And even if help did appear, how could it get through all that?"

Alodar followed the sweep of the mailed arm, and the sick feeling returned to his empty stomach.

The gray hills in the west stretched from horizon to horizon, stark and unbroken except for the one deep and wide notch, like a missing tooth, directly facing him about hah! a mile distant. The walls on the right rose tall and sheer, unbroken monoliths, smooth and inaccessible. The slopes on the left were as steep but cracked with fissures, chimneys, and ledges, and upon these clambered the man Alodar had transported there. Between the two faces, a train of wagons and carts, piled with baggage and arrayed with no pattern, hid the floor of the pass from view. Alodar could make out a motley collection of tents rising in its midst, and from the pinnacles of each flew a blue and silver banner.

Much closer stood an orderly array of artillery, drawn out in a precise circle that Alodar knew completely surrounded the stronghold. With drilled exactness, their crews would load and fire in unison. The great bows of the ballistas hurled their rock hard and flat against the battered outer walls, while the mangonels sent theirs high and lofted to rain down on the foundation of the keep and the surrounding courtyard. Lighter but more accurate trebuchets blasted at the spots already weakened by the heavier siegecraft.

Nearer still, in more irregular array, many clusters of armed men crouched behind full-length shields shining angrily in the morning sun. The groups farther back used their protection, casually bobbing heads and torsos to see the battle's progress. Those closer, within range of the de-

5

fenders' longbows, huddled in tight balls, exposing no arm or a leg as a target.

With each volley of the rockthrowers, the answering fire from the manchicolations and loopholes in the castle's walls would cease, and the men in the field would creep a little closer, their scaling ladders and belfries dragging behind them. From high on the keep, Alodar could see that, long before the clusters reached the outer wall, they would converge into a single continuous ring of attackers.

"Yes, it would take a large force to break through to us," he finally agreed, "but Iron Fist has never fallen to assault."

"It takes more than stone and iron to defend this mound," the sergeant said. "Muscle pulls tight the bowstrings and swings the broadswords, and at last muster we numbered fewer than two hundred fighting men. Two hundred for over half a mile of wall."

He shook his head with lips pulled into a tight line of disapproval. "A mere two hundred, because Vendora wanted to flaunt her might along the southern border. Almost every garrison in Procolon stripped to nothing, so that those petty border kingdoms think to stop then- raids and return to bickering among themselves. Hah, I wonder if those raids seem so important to her now? Fully provisioned, we could withstand anything that Bandor could throw at us. As it is, only the great height and thickness of these walls have saved her crown and pretty neck this long."

"But her miscomputation was no worse than mine," Alodar said, spreading his palms outward. "How would anyone but a sorcerer surmise that one of her most faithful vassals would suddenly lose his reason and plunge through that gap hi the west, just when she was here? The gates clanged shut on noble and craftsman alike who happened to be here, and none claim to have foreseen it."

"Yes, it is strange," the sergeant said. "The ferocity of the attack, the way he drives his men on with no regard for their exhaustion. I have heard it whispered about more than once at night that Bandor has lost not his reason but his will. Like a mere craftsman, he has been possessed."

Alodar blinked with surprise, but before he could reply be was interrupted by one of the observers.

"He has found a spot and is signaling for us to proceed."

"Sweetbalm, luck is with us today," the sergeant exclaimed, jumping his thoughts back to the task at hand. "Start bringing up the beams and lashings."

Alodar stepped to the stand and released the splinter from the clamp. Holding it at arm's length, be dropped his hand a fraction of an inch. The basket sank correspondingly, and the wheel again started to spin. He retraced his steps, and it shot across the sky to hover directly overhead. Finally, as he lowered the splinter, it settled gently onto the floor of the bartizan. Again the giant crank was a blur as the wheel spun, but it turned not nearly as fast as when Morwin had first propelled it.

Alodar rapidly recited another incantation, virtually indistinguishable from the first. When he was done, he flung the splinter high into the air with a dramatic gesture while the basket remained unperturbed on the ground.

The men-at-arms wasted no time in loading two large notched beams into the basket. Morwin against cranked up the wheel, and Alodar removed a fresh splinter and spoke the incantation. Moving with more haste than before, he brought the splinter directly to the clamp; the basket with its burden hurled from the castle to the cliffs. The sergeant directed some small corrections until the basket hovered directly below the ledge that the rider had found. Morwin moved the clamp and secured the splinter in the new position.