Castle Perilous by John Dechancie

now?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œCome.”
    She led him across the semicircular room to the staircase. They mounted it, she leading him by the hand. They went up six turns until they came to a hatchway at the top. Vorn threw the hatch aside and they climbed out onto the turret. Stepping over the dead body of a Guardsman overlooked by the clean-up detail, they went to the battlement.
    â€œLook,” she said, her hand sweeping across the scene. “Walls thirty stories high, a keep whose upper floors are sometimes hid in cloud. Walls within walls, towers that touch the sky, black adamantine stone immune to the elements — a fortress of magic and power unimaginable — and you, Vorn, are about to prevail against it. History has never known such a siege. Future generations will scarce credit it. You will be legend.” Her voice rose over the din of shouting soldiers, the whoosh of the catapults, the crack of a thousand crossbows and the ping and clatter of bolts striking stone. Come here.”
    She lead him to the south side of the turret.
    â€œWe are a thousand feet above the plain.”
    Vorn looked out across the dark lands of the Pale. Gray-black mountains hove in the distance, ringing a valley of dirt and dust. Here and there rude farm huts dotted the terrain, and miserable, near-barren fields made haphazard patterns.
    So poor a land, Vorn thought. But it was a fleeting thought.
    â€œWas ever a fortress more inaccessible, more invulnerable? You levitated an army a thousand feet straight up.”
    â€œThere was no other way,” Vorn said. “Else they would have picked us off one by one as we marched up the trail.”
    â€œYou did it by the power of your will.”
    The power of my will . . .  
    The thought crowded into his mind, nudging doubt aside.
    â€œYou did it, Vorn. Not me.”
    His chest swelled, then fell slowly, a doubting cast returning to his eyes.
    â€œBut you . . .”
    â€œI love you.”
    He looked into her face. Framed in the folds of her headdress, it was partly hidden now as the wind fetched the cloth across her nose and mouth. Her eyes contained a hundred emotions he could not fathom.
    â€œMelydia,” was all he could say.
    â€œDo you believe me?”
    He looked out again at the dust into which he had poured his army’s blood.
    For what? came a small voice, barely heard. For what?
    â€œDo you believe me?”
    His gaze was drawn to hers.
    â€œYes.”
    They embraced as a stronger wind blew his cloak around them.
    Presently they became aware of a hush that had fallen over the battle. They parted and returned to the north side of the turret.
    Melydia pointed. “Behold.”
    Airborne objects approached from the northwest. Their flight was swift, and in formation — like migrating birds.
    â€œWhat this time?” Vorn said. “What manner of hellish thing?”
    â€œWe will know soon.”
    â€œAye, we will. Too soon.”
    â€œAre you afraid?”
    He cast a dark look at her. “You think that deserving of an answer?”
    â€œNo, my love. Forgive me. I know you fear nothing.”
    He encircled her within his meaty left arm.
    The objects soon revealed themselves to be bowl-shaped, with appendages that at a distance could have been taken to be wings, but as the objects neared, took the form of pairs of human hands, disembodied human hands.
    â€œMother Goddess,” Vorn breathed. “What . . . ?”
    Each pair of hands bore a gigantic metal caldron that looked much like an ironsmith’s crucible.
    Melydia stepped away from Vorn and stood against the battlement, hands on either side of a crenellation, leaning out, her face awry with strange, conflicting emotions. There was hope and expectation and fear and dread. There was hatred. And underneath it all, she knew but strove to suppress with every grain of her being, there was love.
    She did not know that there was madness there as