ROOM IS DARK, SIR HEROS, SOLAMNIC KNIGHT OF
THE SWORD. But there was no blame in this, Bayard, no
blame except for the old and honored folly that would make
a man ashamed to breathe when his companions breathed
no longer, and with that blame what the blame could not
banish – a pride in Sir Heros that he could feel the shame,
that such folly was both old and honored.
From the window of the corridor they looked
diminished, frail in their armor and swords and pikes as
they assembled, stamped the cold from their feet, and fell
into line behind the mounted knights. I could single out
Breca in the foremost column, standing a head taller than
those around him, and once I believe he glanced up at the
window to where I was standing, the flatness of his eyes
apparent even from a distance, even through the shadows of
the wall and the dark air of the morning. And perhaps
because of that darkness there was no expression I could see
on his face, but there is an expression I remember, may
have imagined in this permanent and greater darkness from
which I speak to you.
For if an expression could be featureless, void of fear
and of dread and finally of hope, containing if anything only
a sort of resignation and resolve, that was Breca’s
expression and those of his companions, saying (if such a
blankness, a nothing can say anything), THIS IS NOT AS
BAD AS I IMAGINED BUT WORSE THAN I EXPECTED,
and nothing more than that when the doomed gates opened –
the very gates he had called indefensible a short week
before he marched out onto the plains and into the lifting
darkness.
And then again it was the waiting, the waiting no
chronicler records in accounts of this or of any battle. You
have heard, certainly, how the news of Derek’s defeat was
brought to us, of the bodies draped over the red-eyed horses
and of the soft threats of the Dragon Highlord. Of knights
so ruled by the Measure that they let the enemy speak, let
him taunt, until one among us (the elfmaiden it was), not
ruled by an old and wasted chivalry but by something more
profound and ancient – an instinct for survival underlined by
anger – wounded him with a well-placed green arrow. Of
listening to the birds who remained by night as they sang
their songs of bereavement, their songs perhaps of Heros
and of Sturm.
Again it was the waiting, until they attacked and
breached the walls.
And how can I explain to you, Bayard, what it was like
when the waiting ended, how the draconians charged from a
place beyond vision, growing in size and in number as they
covered the miles from their camp unto the foot of the
walls, sidling like crabs from the path of our arrows,
rushing through the rain of oil and pitch we set down before
them, clutching the walls with a fierce suction of the hands
and climbing like chameleons, like salamanders (for some
of them were pitch-covered, burning as they climbed) up to
the crest of the battlements, where the sound of metal on
metal, of metal on flesh, rose up around me and banished
thought.
And you do not stop to reflect on the drawing of blood in
anger. All the preparation in swordsmanship, in tactical
combat and even in the vows of bravery and steadfastness
adds up to nothing like the Measure tells you, none of these
fanciful promises to live your life so that the death of your
enemy is made worthy by your living, for who knew how
long the living would last after your enemy – or even the
last of the enemies – had fallen. But the preparing led only
to the surprisingly heavy lunge of the sword and the small
resistance of armor and skin and gristle and finally bone
against it, when the training tells you, I SUPPOSE THIS
ONE IS DEAD AND WHERE IS THE NEXT ONE
NEAREST, and as though in a corridor of dreams the voice
of the dwarf beside you echoing, DRAW FORTH YOUR