The Carpet People Page 15

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘We’ve got enough for one more charge, and that’s it. And if it comes to hand-to-hand fighting – they’ve got more hands than we have.’

  ‘I thought we were four-armed.’

  ‘Figure of speech. We’re outnumbered and out-weaponed.’

  ‘Good,’ said Brocando. ‘We like a challenge.’

  ‘Here they come again,’ said Snibril. ‘Hang on – just a few of them. Look.’

  Half a dozen snargs were trotting out of the lines. They stopped halfway between the moul army and the remains of the city.

  ‘They want to talk,’ said Bane.

  ‘Can we trust them?’ said Glurk.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. I’d hate to trust something like them.’

  ‘But you should talk,’ said Pismire. ‘It’s always worth talking.’

  In the end they rode out to the mouls. Snibril recognized the leader, who now had a crown of salt crystals and watched them imperiously. But Bane was more interested in Gormaleesh, who was among the party.

  ‘Well?’ said Bane. ‘What do you have to say?’

  ‘My name is Jornarileesh,’ said the moul with the crown. ‘I offer you peace. You cannot win. Time is on our side.’

  ‘We have plenty of weapons, and plenty of men to use them,’ said Bane.

  ‘And plenty of food?’ said Jornarileesh.

  Bane ignored this. ‘What kind of peace do you offer?’

  ‘Throw away your weapons,’ said Jornarileesh. ‘Then we will talk further.’

  ‘Throw away my sword first?’ said Bane, as if he was considering the question.

  ‘Yes. You have no choice.’ Jornarileesh’s gaze swept from face to face. ‘Not one of you. Accept my conditions, or you will die. You six will die here, and the rest of your people will die soon.’

  ‘You can’t listen to him!’ said Snibril. ‘What about Jeopard and the High Gate Land?’

  ‘Throw away my sword,’ said Bane, slowly. ‘It’s an attractive idea, though.’

  He drew the sword and held it up.

  ‘Gormaleesh?’ he said.

  Bane’s arm moved in the blur of speed. The sword slid through the air like a knife, hitting the moul in the throat. Gormaleesh dropped silently, staring in horror.

  ‘There,’ said Bane. ‘That’s how we throw our swords away in Ware. I did warn him. He just wouldn’t listen.’

  He turned his horse and galloped back to the city, with the others trying to keep up. Jornarileesh hadn’t moved a muscle.

  ‘That was very un-Dumii of you,’ said Pismire. ‘I’m surprised.’

  ‘No. Gormaleesh was surprised. You were just amazed,’ said Bane. ‘He was drawing his sword. Didn’t you see?’

  ‘They’re getting ready for another charge,’ said Glurk.

  ‘I’m surp— amazed they haven’t tried digging up from Underlay,’ said Pismire.

  ‘Some did,’ said Glurk, with satisfaction. ‘They came up under Mealy’s squad. They won’t try that again.’

  Bane looked back at the worried faces of the defenders. ‘Their next charge, then,’ he said. ‘We’ll make them remember it. Get the pones ready. We’ll use everything we’ve got.’

  ‘Everything?’ said Brocando. ‘Right.’ He trotted his pony back along the ditch.

  They waited.

  ‘How much food have we got?’ said Snibril, after a while.

  ‘Four or five meals’ worth, for everyone,’ said Bane, absently.

  ‘That’s not much.’

  ‘It may be more than enough,’ said Bane.

  They waited some more.

  ‘Waiting is the worst part,’ said Pismire.

  ‘No it isn’t,’ said Owlglass, who wasn’t even being trusted to hold a sword. ‘I expect that having long sharp swords stuck in you is the worst part. Waiting’s just boring. When I say boring, I mean—’

  ‘Here they come,’ said Glurk, picking up his spear.

  ‘They’ve moved around,’ said Bane. ‘Putting everything they’ve got in one place. Right. Has anyone got a spare sword?’

  In the end, it’s people fighting. Charges and counter-charges. Arrows and spears everywhere. Swords cutting bits off people. Afterwards, historians draw maps and put little coloured oblongs on them and big wide arrows to indicate that this is where the Deftmenes caught a whole crowd of mouls unawares, and here is where the pones trampled some snargs, and here is where Mealy’s Irregulars were trapped and were only rescued by a determined rush by a group of Munrungs. And sometimes there are crosses – this is where Bane brought down a moul chief, there is where Owlglass laid out a snarg by accident.

  The maps can’t show the fear, and the noise, and the excitement. Afterwards it’s better. Because if there’s an afterwards, it’s because you’re still alive. Half the time no one knows what happened until it’s over. Sometimes you don’t know even who’s won until you’ve counted . . .

  Snibril ducked and stabbed his way through the mêlée. There seemed to be mouls everywhere. One caught him a cut on his shoulder, and he didn’t even notice until afterwards.

  And then he was in a clearer area, mouls all around him, swords upraised—

  ’Wait.’

  There was Jornarileesh, the moul leader, with a paw held up.

  ‘Not yet. See we are not disturbed.’ He looked down at Snibril. ‘You were out there, with the others. And tried to save the fat little Emperor. I am curious. Why are you still fighting? Your city is destroyed. You cannot win.’

  ‘Ware’s not destroyed until we stop fighting,’ said Snibril.

  ‘Really? How can this be?’

  ‘Because . . . because if Ware is anywhere, it’s inside people,’ said Snibril.

  ‘Then we shall have to see if we can find it,’ said Jornarileesh meaningfully.

  There was trumpeting behind him, and the group scattered as a pone stampeded through the fight. Snibril dived for safety. When he looked back, the moul was back in the fray.

  And the defenders were losing. You could feel it in the air. For every moul that was beaten, there were two more to take their place.

  He rolled down a slope and found Bane there, holding off a couple of the enemy. As Snibril landed, one of the mouls sunk to the ground. A backhand swipe took care of the other.

  ‘We’re losing,’ said Snibril. ‘We need a miracle.’

  ‘Miracles don’t win battles,’ said Bane. Half a dozen more mouls appeared around the rubble of a half-destroyed building. ‘Superior numbers and better tactics—’

  There was a bugle call behind them. The mouls turned.

  There was another army advancing. It wasn’t very big, but it was determined. Brocando was in the lead. They could hear his shout over the noise.

  ‘Madam! Hold it by the other end! Now, now, ladies, don’t all push! Careful of that spear, you could do someone a mischief—’

  ‘Isn’t that the point, young man?’ said an old lady who shouldn’t have been anywhere near a battlefield.

  ‘No, madam, that is the butt. The point is the sharp bit at the other end.’

  ‘Then out of the way, young man, so’s I can use it. ‘

  The mouls were staring in astonishment. Snibril hit two of them over the head before the others had time to react, and by then it was too late.

  The women weren’t the most efficient fighters Bane had ever seen, but Brocando had spent a couple of days giving them some secret training. Mealy had helped, too. And they were keen. Besides, not having been trained as proper soldiers was even a help. Dumii soldiers learned their tic-toc sword drill, and weren’t up to novel ways invented as you went along, like hitting an enemy across the back of the knees with the end of a spear and stabbing him as he fell over. The women fought nastier.

  And it still wasn’t enough.

  The ring of defenders was pushed back, and back, until it was fighting in the ruins of the city itself.

  And . . . was beaten. Valiantly beaten. They lost. Ware was never reb
uilt. There was never a new Republic. The survivors fled to what remained of their homes, and that was the end of the history of civilization. For ever.

  Deep in the hairs, Culaina the thunorg moved without walking. She passed through future after future, and there they were, nearly all alike.

  Defeat. The end of the Empire. The end of the unimaginative men who thought there was a better way of doing things than fighting. The death of Bane. The death of Snibril. Everyone dead. For nothing.

  Now she moved without running, faster and faster through all the future of Maybe. They streamed past her. These were all the futures that never got written down – the futures where people lost, worlds crumbled, where the last wild chances were not quite enough. All of them had to happen, somewhere.

  But not here, she said.

  And then there was one, and only one. She was amazed. Normally futures came in bundles of thousands, differing in tiny little ways. But this one was all by itself. It barely existed. It had no right to exist. It was the million-to-one chance that the defenders would win.

  She was fascinated. They were strange people, the Dumii. They thought they were as level-headed as a table, as practical as a shovel – and yet, in a great big world full of chaos and darkness and things they couldn’t hope to understand, they acted as though they really believed in their little inventions, like ‘law’ and ‘justice’. And they didn’t have enough imagination to give in.

  Amazing that they should have even one chance of a future.

  Culaina smiled.

  And went to see what it was . . .

  What you look at, you change.

  *

  The mouls pulled back again, but only to regroup. After all, there was nowhere for the Dumii to go. And Snibril thought that Jornarileesh was the sort who’d enjoy imagining them waiting for him, wondering about how it was all going to end.

  He found Glurk and Bane leaning exhausted against a crumbled wall. Three Dumii women were with them; one of them was bandaging a wound on Glurk’s arm with strips of what had once been a good dress.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘At least they’ll say we went down fighting – ouch ...’

  ‘Hold still, will you?’ said the woman.

  Bane said: ‘I don’t expect the mouls have much interest in history. After this, no more books. No more history. No more history books.’

  ‘Somehow, that’s the worst part,’ said Snibril.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said one of the women. ‘Er. I am Lady Cerilin Vortex. Widow of the late Major Vortex?’

  ‘I remember him. A very honourable soldier,’ said Bane.

  ‘I’d just like to say that no more history books is not the worst part, young man. Dying’s probably the worst part,’ said Lady Vortex. ‘History will look after itself.’

  ‘I’m sure we’re very . . . um . . . grateful that you have assisted,’ said Bane, awkwardly.

  ‘We haven’t assisted, we’ve taken part,’ said Lady Vortex sharply.

  All around the ruins of Ware people were sitting in small groups, or tending the wounded. Two pones had been killed. They at least were easy to count. Snibril hadn’t seen Brocando or Pismire for a long time.

  There was movement among the enemy.

  Snibril sighed. ‘Here they come again,’ he said, standing up.

  ‘History, eh?’ said Glurk, picking up his spear. ‘One final glorious stand.’

  Lady Vortex picked up a sword. She was bristling with anger. ‘We shall see about final,’ she said, in a way that made Snibril think that it would be a very unlucky moul that ever attacked her. She turned to Bane. ‘And when we get out of this, young man,’ she snapped, ‘there’s going to be some serious talking. If we’re going to fight, we’re going to have a bit of the future too—’

  The mouls began to charge.

  But it seemed half-hearted. The ones in the front kept on coming, but gradually the ones behind slowed down. They were shouting at one another, and looking back at the hairs. Within a few seconds, they were milling around in bewilderment.

  The defenders stared.

  ‘Why’re they stopping?’ said Glurk.

  Snibril squinted at the shadows between the hairs.

  ‘There’s . . . something else there . . .’ he said

  ‘More mouls?’

  ‘Can’t quite see . . . there’s fighting . . . hang on . . .’ He blinked. ‘It’s wights. Thousands and thousands of wights! They’re attacking the mouls!’

  Bane looked around at the defenders. ‘Then we’ve got one choice,’ he said. ‘Charge!’

  Caught between two armies, the mouls didn’t even have a million to one chance. And the wights fought like mad things . . . worse, they fought like sane things, with the very best weapons they’d been able to make, cutting and cutting. Like surgeons, Pismire said later. Or people who had found out that the best kind of future is one you make yourself.

  Afterwards, they found that Athan the wight had died in the fighting. But at least he hadn’t known he was going to. And wights talk to each other in strange ways, across the whole of the Carpet, and his new ideas had flashed like fire from wight to wight: you don’t have to accept it, you can change what’s going to happen.

  It was an idea that had never occurred to them before.

  *

  And then it was over.

  No one could find the Emperor. No one looked very hard. No one said anything, but somehow everyone assumed that Bane was in charge now.

  It doesn’t all stop with the fighting, Snibril thought. The end of the fighting is when the problems start, no matter if you’ve won or lost. There are thousands of people with one day’s food and no houses, and there’s still mouls out there – although I think they’ll be keeping away for a while. And the Empire’s in bits. And there’s still the High Gate Land to deal with.

  At least the question of food was easily settled. There were dead snargs everywhere. As Glurk said, there was no sense in letting them go to waste.

  Bane spent all day sitting in the ruins of the palace, listening to the crowds of people who filed past him, and occasionally giving orders. A squad was sent off to Jeopard, to bring back the rest of the Munrungs’ carts.

  Someone suggested that there ought to be a feast. Bane said, one day.

  And then they brought in Jornarileesh. He’d been badly injured by a spear, but Glurk’s snarg-gathering party had found him alive. They tried to drag him in front of Bane, but since he could hardly stand up there wasn’t much point.

  ‘There should be a trial,’ said Pismire, ‘according to ancient custom—’

  ‘And then kill it,’ said Glurk.

  ‘No time,’ said Bane. ‘Jornarileesh?’

  Despite his wounds, the moul raised his head proudly.

  ‘I will show you how a moul can die,’ he said.

  ‘We know that already,’ said Bane, matter-of-factly. ‘What I want to know is . . . why? Why attack us?’

  ‘We serve Fray! Fray hates life in the Carpet!’

  ‘Merely a natural phenomenon,’ murmured Pismire. ‘Bound to yield to scientific observation and deduction.’

  Jornarileesh growled at him.

  ‘Throw him in a cell somewhere,’ said Bane. ‘I haven’t got time to listen to him.’

  ‘I don’t think there are any cells,’ said Glurk.

  ‘Then get him to build a cell and then throw him in it.’

  ‘But we should kill him!’

  ‘No. You’ve been listening to Brocando too often,’ said Bane.

  Brocando bristled. ‘You know what he is! Why not kill—?’ he began, but he was interrupted.

  ‘Because it doesn’t matter what he is. It matters what we are.’

  They all looked around. Even Jornarileesh.

  It was me, thought Snibril. I didn’t realize I said it aloud. Oh, well. . .

  ‘That’s what matters,’ said Snibril. ‘That’s why Ware was built. Because people wanted to find better ways than fighting. And stop being afraid of the futur
e.’

  ‘ We never joined the Empire!’ said Brocando.

  ‘When it was time to choose, whose side were you on?’ said Snibril. ‘Anyway, you were part of the Empire. You just didn’t know it. You spent so much time being proud of not being part of it that you ended up . . . well, being part of it. What would you do if the Empire didn’t exist? Go back to throwing people off rocks!’

  ‘I don’t throw people off rocks!’

  Jornarileesh’s head turned from one to the other in fascination.

  ‘Why did you stop?’ said Snibril.

  ‘Well – it just wasn’t the . . . never mind!’

  ‘These?’ said Jornarileesh, in astonishment. ‘These beat me? Weak stupid people arguing all the time?’

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it,’ said Bane. ‘Take him away and lock him up.’

  ‘I demand an honourable death!’

  ‘Listen to me,’ said Bane, and now the tone of his voice was like bronze. ‘I killed Gormaleesh because people like that shouldn’t be allowed to exist. You, I’m not sure about. But if you annoy me one more time, I’ll kill you where you stand. Now . . . take him away.’

  Jornarileesh opened his mouth, and then shut it again. Snibril stared at the pair of them. He’d do it, he thought. Here and now. Not out of cruelty or rage, but because it needed to be done.

  It dawned on him that he’d much rather face a fighting-mad Brocando, or Jornarileesh in a fury, than Bane.

  ‘Snibril’s right, though,’ said Pismire, as the silent moul was hurried off. ‘Everyone’s done things the old way. Now we’ll have to find a new way. Otherwise there won’t be any way. We don’t want to have to go through all this just to start squabbling over something else. The Empire—’

  ‘I’m not sure there’s going to be an Empire again,’ said Bane.

  ‘What? But there’s got to be an Empire!’ said Pismire.

  ‘There might be something better,’ said Bane. ‘I’m thinking about it. Lots of small countries and cities joined together could be better than one big Empire. I don’t know.’

  ‘And a voice for women,’ said Lady Vortex’s voice from somewhere in the crowd.

  ‘Possibly even that,’ he said. ‘There should be something for everyone.’

  He looked up. At the back of the group were some of the wights. They hadn’t said anything. No one knew their names.