From the top of one of the towers, a beam of pure heat shimmered the air. Param followed the beam and then strode the five steps to the stockade and peered through. Where the beam landed, the grass was erupting in flame, and men were fleeing from it.
At first Param noticed little distinction between the two armies—they were masses of human shapes brandishing weapons. The numbers seemed evenly matched. But soon, from looking at those nearest her, she realized that all the defenders were better armed—swords and bows against clubs and crude spears.
Yet instead of cutting through the attackers, the swords of the defenders seemed rarely to slice flesh. The attackers always dodged away, avoiding the cuts and blows. However, the clubs and spears of the attackers landed all the time; if it had not been for the armor of the defenders, many would have fallen.
Why were the attackers so much better at fighting?
Then Param realized that the attackers all had large, strangely shaped heads; a moment later she saw that their heads were deformed because they had facemasks almost entirely covering their heads. Many of them seemed to have weirdly misplaced eyes, as if the parasite, having covered the face of a man, grew him a new eye out of its own rough flesh. Param found them repulsive and fascinating. The men with facemasks fought savagely and skillfully. They were quick, dancing to dodge incoming arrows from the defenders, darting forward to strike blows which rarely missed, though the defenders’ armor usually turned away the blade.
Another beam came from the tower. It should have been a devastating advantage for the defenders, to have that beam of fire. But instead of striking into one of the masses of the attacking army, it struck an area that was mostly empty of living men of either side. Again flames gouted upward, and men of both sides ran from the area of flame. The battlefield was dotted with patches of flame or cinders or ash, so that neither army could maintain good order.
“Those bastards in the tower ought to be hanged,” muttered Loaf. He was standing at the stockade beside her.
“They don’t seem to aim their rod of fire very well,” she said.
“They’re hitting nobody,” said Loaf. “Useless.”
Olivenko, from the other side of her, said, “What makes the attackers so nimble? I’ve never seen soldiers who dodge so well.”
“The defenders are good soldiers,” said Loaf. “Trained, disciplined. But they hardly land a blow.”
Olivenko agreed. “It takes two of them attacking the same man at once to bring him down.”
“Maybe it’s because they don’t have any armor,” said Loaf. “Keeps them lighter on their feet.”
It’s the facemask, Param wanted to say. The facemasks help them to react more quickly. But she said nothing. Loaf and Olivenko were soldiers; they knew what they were seeing, and she didn’t.
With both of the soldiers watching the battle, it occurred to Param that neither of them was protecting Rigg. What if the women took him for some kind of enemy? What if they were armed? Param could at least take Rigg out of harm’s way, if danger threatened.
The women were speaking a language that Param had never heard before, yet she understood them. She realized that she was not mentally translating their speech into any tongue that she actually knew. Rather she simply understood them at a level below language. The Wall really did give languages to those who passed through it.
The women were angry and frightened, and like Loaf they were condemning the wielder of the firebeam. But the women did not speak of “them” who aimed; rather it was “him.”
“He won’t use it to kill them,” said the tallest of the women. “And he won’t let any of us use it—we’d have no qualms about burning them.”
“They aren’t human anymore,” said the eldest woman—the mother? “Killing them should be like killing grass, but he won’t do it.”
“He’s no friend of ours,” said the youngest.
“He has no choice but to be our friend,” said the tall one. “It’s in the way he was made.”
“He does what he wants,” said the young one.
Rigg was merely listening to them, letting them talk to him; Param understood why. He was learning vital information with everything they said. If he probed, he might not learn as much, because they would become more aware of him. Param wished she knew how he had explained who they were, these four who had suddenly appeared inside the stockade. But maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe it was enough for these women that the strangers wore no facemasks.
“We can’t build the city without him,” complained the old woman. “But he won’t let us make a wall of fieldsteel—this miserable stockade is all we can make without him. We’ve depended too much on him! We haven’t any skills in our own hands.”
Param guessed who “he” was; who but Vadesh himself? No one else could build with fieldsteel; no one else could create a beam of pure heat, then bar the people of the city from using it themselves.
“He does us no good,” said the young one. “The city is eternal, but what good is that when we can’t defend it?”
“We can’t live anywhere else,” said the tall one. “Where would we get safe water? We’d become like them.” Having seen the men with facemasks, Param understood the woman’s dread and loathing.
Finally the old woman took notice of Param. “Are you his sister?” she asked.
Param had forgotten how much Rigg resembled her. “I am,” she said.
“I wish I could offer help,” said Rigg.
The tall woman pointed at the stockade, where Loaf and Olivenko stood. “They look like stout soldiers, and well-armed.”
“But inexperienced against such a quick and clever enemy,” said Param. “They would be beaten almost at once.”
“Where are you from?” asked the old woman suspiciously. “You speak like feeble-minded children.”
“Your language is new to us,” said Rigg.
“Our language?” said the young woman incredulously. “Is there another? They don’t speak at all, except the grunting of beasts. Where are you from?”
“Beyond the Wall,” said Param.
“The future,” said Rigg.
Param found it interesting that while they had chosen different truths to tell, neither she nor Rigg had thought of lying.
It made little difference. The women drew together as they shrank back from Param and Rigg. “Liars,” said the old woman.
“Spies,” said the young one.
But the tall one, though she was as frightened as the others, still cast a hungry, appraising gaze upon them. “The future? Then you know. Do we win this war?”
Rigg turned to Param and addressed her in the elevated language of the court. “I have learned all that I think we can. Let us get the others.”
Param glanced at the women. They had not been through the Wall; they didn’t know the language Rigg was using, and it must be frightening to hear speech they couldn’t understand. “Aren’t you going to answer her?” said Param.
“I don’t know the answer.”
“We know that the city is empty!”
“But is it this war that empties it? Telling her might change things.”
“All of her people are dead for ten thousand years. Any change would be better.”
“I can think of worse outcomes,” said Rigg. He glanced toward the stockade—toward the battle raging beyond the stockade. “What if these people despair, knowing they do not win, and so they give up and those people, the afflicted ones, survive?”
“What are you saying?” demanded the old woman.
“That isn’t language,” said the young one. “It makes no sense.”
The tall one now had a knife in her hand, long and sharp. “They’re spies.” She lunged at Rigg.
Instinctively, Param grabbed Rigg’s arm and took a leap toward what she thought of as her “hiding place”—invisibility. But as she did it, she realized she mustn’t. If she detached herself and Rigg from the timeflow that the others were in, there was no guarantee that Umbo could bring them back. So she stopped herself in the very moment of her panicky shift.