Pashtuk merely shook his head, as if weary of Saffira's naivete acute. "They did not meet our patrol, O Great Star. No human would tear apart another man so savagely. Reavers did this."

"Oh," Saffira said without emotion, as if the thought of reavers stalking the woods around them did not alarm her in the least. Her guards let their mounts edge closer.

Pashtuk glanced at Borenson, and his dark eyes spoke volumes. "With reavers on the road, we are in trouble."

CHAPTER 48.

THE REAVERS SEND A MESSAGE.

Roland stood on the castle walls and cheered as Raj Ahten emerged from the Duke's Keep and began shouting orders to his men, instructing them to prepare for a charge.

Proud Invincibles raced down the ramparts to their horses, squires began carrying barding and lances from the armory. It would take a good hour for the men to effect a charge, and Roland could do nothing but wait.

Over on Bone Hill, the reaver mages were hard at work; the fell mage near its crown was a blur of glittering motion. As they labored, a roiling brown haze began to swirl off the rune.

The odor of death and decay rising from Bone Hill left Roland feeling sick. His stomach churned, and his muscles ached, while his eyes burned so badly that he hardly dared look toward the hill any longer.

As Raj Ahten's men armored their horses, Roland noticed subtle changes out on the plain. The huge Glue-mums had been chewing gra.s.s and trees, continuously excreting a thick, sticky resin that howlers used to fuse stone together--stone that formed walls and barricades.

They'd been working on the south sh.o.r.e of the lake, creating several large domes.. Men had conjectured that these domes might be nesting sites, but now the reavers flipped the domes over and pushed them toward the water, and Roland recognized that the domes were rely ships, enormous vessels without oars or sails, shaped like the halves of walnut sh.e.l.ls.

The howlers now began toiling desperately, building up the sides of the ships stone by stone.

A cold terror struck at the pit of Roland's stomach. Until now the reavers had seemed content to ignore the men of Carris.

But now it was evident that, like Raj Ahten in the courtyards below, they were preparing to attack.

To the west, reavers continued to burrow. The barren earth had become pocked and cratered with openings that were strangely taller to the north than to the south.

As afternoon wore toward evening, Roland grew steadily more ill. The air around Carris felt oppressive, with its scent of decay. His head ached, despair settled into his stomach, and a deep-seated fatigue made him feel so worn that he could hardly stand. Some of the men around him tried to hide the fact that they had begun weeping.

In an effort to keep their humor up, some stout warriors began to hurl insults at the reavers, while others laughed and a.s.signed names to the new landmarks that the reavers created.

The huge stone tower to the south rose higher and higher, resembling a twisted narwhale horn or a giant thorn. By midafternoon it was over eight hundred feet tall, and still the reavers kept on building. The fell mage twice went to check the progress atop the tower, and men noted that it looked something like a male reaver's genitals, so they called it the "Love Tower."

To the east of the tower, along the sh.o.r.e of Lake Donnestgree, Glue-mums and howlers continued to work on their ships in the Stone Shipyards.

The pile of discarded wood from homes and trees and fences was called Mount Woody. The men delighted in calling the mult.i.tude of burrows to its northwest "Lord Paladane's Slum."

Yet of all the foul things created that day, the evil rune on Bone Hill was the most appalling. No mere howlers executed the masonry work. Roland half-glimpsed them behind the walls of their coc.o.o.n. While howlers carted off dirt from the trenches and dragged deadwood to the Glue-mums, mages with runes tatooed along the ridges of their heads above their philia built the wall of the horrific rune.

So the great rune grew--an obscene badge that slowly began to emanate smoke and power. The lines of it beneath the brown haze were marvelously sinuous, like garter snakes all mating in a ball, or like a plate of hummingbird tongues. Like reaver magic itself, the rune was twisted and vile.

If Roland tried to look at it, his eyes literally throbbed. The knotty cords that controlled the movement of the eyes would all convulse, so that he could not focus. Yet if he turned away, the burning sensation against his skin felt so intense that at times he sniffed the air, fearing that he would smell his own flesh cooking.

But the dismay that the fell mage's rune caused the men was not the only manifestation of its power. For as the rune neared completion, it began to wreak a monstrous change around Bone Hill: The few shrubs and gra.s.ses at the foot of the hill began to steam and die.

The gra.s.s turned gray and wilted. On the inside wall beneath him, Roland could see the branches of the almond tree slowly begin to writhe The leaves blistered and fell.

By the time Raj Ahten's troops had barded their horses and donned their own armor, Roland looked out beyond the walls. North, south, and west of the castle gra.s.s and trees steamed as they died, miles away.

The men of Carris renamed Bone Hill the "Throne of Desolation." As for Castle Carris itself, some men grimly whispered that it might best be called the "Butcher's Playpen." Roland imagined that the city held enough people to feed the reavers for a couple of months or more. It was hard to tell, with so many reavers still marching north. Certainly, every man in Carris felt destined to grace a reaver's dinner table.

For a time, Roland searched hopefully off to the east, where the weak sun shone on the choppy waves. Still no sign of boats returning. Roland clutched his half-sword, practiced drawing it.

The reavers built. But they did not attack.

"Maybe they're not going to attack," Roland ventured hopefully. "Maybe they're after something else...."

"It's Bone Hill that draws them," a man behind Roland said. He was a wretchedly skinny farmer with the wiry hair of a goat for a beard. He'd introduced himself earlier in the morning as Meron Blythefellow, and he guarded the wall with nothing more than a pickaxe.

"Why do you say that?" Roland asked.

"All the dead men up there," the farmer said. "More knights have led charges and died on that hill than anywhere else in all Rofehavan. There's been maybe a hundred battles fought, and all that blood on the ground poisons the soil, making it ripe for dark enchantments. The blood is so thick that the Duke has even tried to mine it, looking for blood metal. That's why the reavers are here, I think--to build that rune on ground rich in human blood."

As Blythefellow voiced this thought, Baron Poll frowned. "I don't think that's it at all. Maybe they're just sending us a message."

"A message?" Roland asked, incredulous. It was obvious that the reavers were poisoning the people of Carris, sickening them with their twisted magics. "Reavers can't talk."

"Not usually," the Baron argued, "at least not so that we can understand. But they talk nonetheless."

"So what are the reavers saying?" Roland asked.

Baron Poll waved is arms across the landscape. As far as the eye could see, the land around Carris was scarred and barren. Cities, farmhouses, fences, and fortresses alike had all fallen and been carted away. Trees steamed on hills five miles distant.

"Can't you read it?" Baron Poll said. "It's not as hard to decipher as high script: 'The land that was once yours is ours. Your homes are our homes. Your food--well, you are our food. We supplant you."'

Down in the bailey, Raj Ahten's troops had mounted. The knights sat astride their chargers, war lances held upright, pointed like glistening needles at the sky.

"Open the gates!" Raj Ahten shouted at their head. Chains creaked as the drawbridge lowered.

CHAPTER 49.

HUE AND CRY.

Averan didn't know that she'd fallen asleep until she felt Spring lurch up, ripping the warm cloak from her grasp. The green woman shivered with excitement, sniffing the air.

All night long, Averan had suffered from strange dreams, unreal visions of the Underworld.

The day was cool. The sun lay behind. thick clouds. A thin drizzle rained down. Averan had been dreaming that one of the graaks had brought a rotten goat to the aerie, as they sometimes did, and Brand was making her drag it away.

She cleared her eyes. While she'd slept, the ferns above her had all died. They hung wet and sullen, like limp gray rags. Indeed, every bit of moss at her fingertips, every tender vine, every tree overhead, all had wilted as if blasted by the worst h.o.a.rfrost ever seen. The scent of decay lay heavy in the air.

Worse than that, whatever had cursed the ground seemed also to affect her. Averan felt nauseous, and her muscles were weak. A dry film coated her mouth.

If I stay here, I'll die, she thought.

In mounting curiosity and horror, Averan glanced up at the sky. Sunrise had come and gone hours ago. Soon the sun would set.

She'd run most of the night. In her exhaustion, Averan had slept the entire day. In that time, a horrible change had been wrought upon the land.

Now the green woman lifted her nose so that her olive hair fell back on her shoulders, and she said softly, "Blood, yes. Sun, no."

Averan leapt to her feet in the evening drizzle, glanced down the long hill. A mile away, a group of huge reavers raced on her side of the ca.n.a.l, following her scent.

The air issuing from their thoraxes made a dull rattle, and they scurried about in a defensive formation called "nines." A scarlet sorceress led them, bearing a staff that glowed cruelly with obscene runes.

A reaver mage, Averan realized dully, fighting panic. In dull wonder, Averan realized that the scout she had eaten had known this monster and the blade-bearers at her back. These were no common troops. These were some of the fell mage's most elite guards.

Averan's shouts of "Beware" must have frightened the reavers, causing them to send some of their most deadly warriors.

Desperately, Averan sprinted through the wilted ferns surrounding the hill, sliding on their slimy surface, hardly daring to make an occasional loop, knowing she could never outrun the monsters, knowing that in moments she would be within their field of vision.

The green woman loped beside her, curious; glancing back like a dog eager to hunt squirrels, unsure whether to fight or flee.

Overhead, the leaves of every tree had fallen. There was no foliage, nothing she could hide behind. With nowhere to go and nothing to lose, Averan did what instinct bade her. She raised a hue and cry: "Help! Help! Murder!"

Even as she screamed, she thought, If I yelled "Reavers!" no one would be dumb enough to come to my rescue.

CHAPTER 50.

RIDE OF THE MICE.

"Open the gates!" Raj Ahten shouted from the bailey. Five hundred force soldiers gathered behind the castle gates, the knights and horses gleaming in armor, painted lances p.r.i.c.kling toward the sky.

The only monument left to mankind within sight was Carris itself, still tall, its white plaster walls still proud in the fading afternoon light. Rain had fallen on and off all day long, misting everything. Now a bit of sunlight beamed from a break in the clouds.

The walls of Carris gleamed preternaturally, contrasting with the dark wet mud outside.

The drawbridge dropped; and everywhere within the walls, men began to cheer wildly. Raj Ahten led the foray himself, bearing a long white lance of ash, riding his great gray Imperial force horse.

He swept over the causeway at an astonishing speed, and in seconds thundered over the plains toward the Throne of Desolation. Blade-bearers waiting well, back from the causeway charged to meet him.

He swept past the first few of the great monsters as if they were but islands in a stream. His troops flowed behind. Each horse had endowments of brawn and grace and metabolism, and thus even in armor could race over the downs like a gale.

Raj Ahten's face shone like the sun. Even at this distance, he drew the eye like no other man could, as if he bore beauty with him.

Now the knights took formation, five columns charging north toward the Throne of Desolation. Reavers rushed to block them, their carapaces gleaming darkly from the afternoon rain. From such a distance, Raj Ahten and his men looked to Roland like a great herd of mice, charging out to make war upon overfed cats.

Their horses were marvelous and speedy, their lances gleamed in the sunlight like needles. The men shouted war cries that were lost on the wind.

And the reavers towered above them, sickly gray and bloated.

Lances struck home. Some knights sought to strike the reaver's brain by aiming at the soft spot in its skull, or by driving a lance through the roof of its mouth. A reaver so struck died almost instantly.

But others opted to try to drive a lance into the reaver's belly, a maiming wound.

Thus the Invincibles charged and began to strike, but almost as often as a lance went home, it exploded harmlessly against a reaver's hard carapace. The unfortunate warriors who failed to strike a deadly blow were often borne backward off their horses, left weaponless to scurry for refuge while hoping that their fellows would slay their foes.

Roland watched one horse slip on the slick mud and crash into a reaver as if it were a stone wall, so that both horse and rider were broken instantly. Elsewhere a blade-bearer swung a great blade and sliced the legs from beneath a charging force horse.

Half a dozen reavers went down in seconds, along with several men. As each column of knights met resistance, its men would veer away from the foe, so that the columns quickly became irregular snaking seams.

And once a lancer met his target, his lance would be destroyed. Either it would become hopelessly impaled into the reaver, or it would shatter. In either case the lancer was forced to turn his horse and retreat.

Raj Ahten and a few knights bore down on the Throne of Desolation, his mount racing through the brown clouds that continuously swirled out from it, between wide columns of hardened mucilage that formed the coc.o.o.n.

He's charging like a fly into the spider's web, Roland feared.

The few dozen enormous blade-bearers rose up to meet him. Atop the throne, Glue-mums like ugly grubs reared in wonder at the threat, while mages took defensive positions behind the walls of the rune itself. Howlers fled for cover. The fell mage whirled to look at him from her eyeless head, then dismissed the threat and went back to work.

As the Invincibles charged, at the edge of the coc.o.o.n, reavers reared up on their back legs, great talons gleaming as they clutched their enormous blades or glory hammers.

Then the forces clashed. A dozen reavers were thrust through by the fury of the charge. Lances shattered. Blades whipped through the air faster than the eye could see; Invincibles and their horses were slashed asunder.

In that single charge at the lip of the coc.o.o.n, Raj Ahten lost a full dozen men. Those who met the reavers forfeited their lances. Raj Ahten himself brought a reaver down, plunging his lance into its mouth.

But even as it fell, its tonnage blocked the path to Bone Hill. Raj Ahten turned his mount and raced back for the castle, a few knights at his heel.

From the warrens at Lord Paladane's Slums, reavers issued from their burrows in fury, scuttling from the shadows, while others raced from the western sh.o.r.e of the lake. Along the roads to the south, reavers still marched in an unending line.

Raj Ahten saw the threat, wheeled toward the castle. His men retreated for their lives.

Reavers from the west lumbered up to block the causeway--and Raj Ahten's escape.

On the castle walls, men began to shout, encouraging Raj Ahten's troops to better speed, cheering for men who had been their enemies a few hours before.

But Roland merely stood with his mouth agape.

Is that the best we can do against them? he wondered.