Wizardborn, p.21
Wizardborn, page 21
Myrrima glanced up and down the battle lines. Everywhere knights had come off their horses, and many of them now were leaping into the ranks of the reavers, armed with nothing but their courage, their endowments, and their battle-axes. She saw Gaborn’s standard to the north. He fought with the green woman at his side.
Myrrima followed Hoswell down into the gully, and they stopped to shoot a pair of reavers on the trail.
With her endowments, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. She knew that the reavers were charging at twenty miles per hour, but to her it seemed as if they came at only a brisk walk.
She loosed an arrow, missed again.
“With your endowments,” Hoswell said, “you can afford to miss. If a reaver charges you, just run away.”
His assurances had a calming effect. She drew an arrow, took aim. The monster was rushing at her, and it filled her vision as it reared overhead. It gaped its mouth. Crystalline teeth flashed like molten daggers.
She dropped to a crouch, managed to fire up through its soft palate, then leapt backward as the beast kept charging on.
Her heart hammered as the reaver collapsed. But now her heart was not pounding in fear so much as in the thrill of the hunt.
Killing blade-bearers seemed easy. She felt tempted to grab Borenson’s warhammer and leap into the fray, but resisted the impulse. She was gaining confidence with her bow.
But with monsters like these, any mistake would be her last.
24
THE WEALTH OF NATIONS
The wealth of nations lies not in gold or arms, but in the vigilance of its people.
—Rajah Farah Magreb, High King of ancient Indhopal
It is amazing what an old man can learn in half a day if he keeps his eyes and ears open.
Three miles behind the battle lines, Feykaald glanced at the charging mounts, saw the Runelords of Rofehavan sweep into the reavers’ flanks.
He’d stayed back with the carters and rode beside the wains that bore the king’s lances and food. One wagon in particular held his attention: Gaborn’s treasure wagon. It had a flat bed like others in the caravan, but this one had a tarp tied over its trunks—and guards to watch it.
He knew that the wain carried treasure of some kind. It might be as insignificant as clothing and jewels from Iome’s household, but he hoped for something better.
Now, as the battle raged, the carters stood atop their wains to get a better view. Most of the guards for the precious wagon had gone to join the charge, and only a pair of them remained.
Feykaald rode along behind the wagons slowly, so as not to attract attention. He needn’t have feared. Gaborn’s charge this morning was the stuff of dreams, the kind of thing that children only heard about in wild tales.
The guards stood watching the battle, riveted.
As he passed the wagon, Feykaald reached down with his cobra staff and pulled up a tarp, to get a peek at the boxes.
His heart hammered.
He saw only the corner of a box. It was made of cedar from Indhopal, instead of oak from Rofehavan.
Feykaald had supervised the packing of that box himself. He knew its contents: Raj Ahten’s forcibles.
Feykaald could not suppress a smile. He dropped the tarp, continued riding past the wain. One guard glanced back at him. Feykaald nodded toward the battlefield. “It goes well, neh?”
The guard turned away.
Five boxes beneath the tarp. Five boxes—nearly twenty thousand forcibles! Gaborn still had half of his master’s treasure!
Feykaald briefly considered trying to murder the two guards and flee with the boxes. But he dared not even entertain the thought.
Gaborn knew when his Chosen were in danger.
Feykaald would have to come up with a better plan.
25
GRUDGING RESPECT
A keen blade, a fierce dog, a bold wife—these things are good.
—Adage from Internook
Borenson rolled to his knees and began to crawl over the rough stubble. He could see nothing, could hear only the vague din of battle—the screams of horses, the hissing of reavers as they pounded over the plain.
He scrambled forward, struggled to hold his breath. The reaver mage’s spell made his ears more than just ring; he’d lost his balance, and could do little more than crawl.
His eyes burned like fire. Tears rolled from them. His sinuses ached as if he’d inhaled scalding smoke.
The pain was excruciating. He’d smelled curses like these at Carris, but he’d never taken one full in the face, fifty feet downwind from a mage.
Borenson clambered through the stubble as doggedly as he could. He reasoned that if he was going to be the target of a reaver’s wrath, at least he would be a moving target.
After a few yards, he exhaled his burning lungs, swallowed a fresh breath. The stench had lessened, yet even now it was too much. He vomited his breakfast into the grass and struggled on.
Ten yards farther, he put his sleeve over his nose, tried inhaling again. The stench seemed to cling to his lungs like pitch. It brought racking coughs. He staggered up and ran.
Is this how my father died? he wondered.
He felt a terrible pity for the man.
In less than a minute he turned, blinking at the battle lines, fiercely wiping tears from his face with the back of his hand.
He strained to see. He’d reached a small rise, a hundred yards from the reavers’ trail. Everywhere up and down the battle line, Runelords fought reavers tooth and nail. Few of the knights had lances. Most had dismounted and now rushed in to fight with battle-axes and warhammers.
The lords had decimated the reavers’ western flank. Many reavers fled east to escape the slaughter.
At the rear of the reaver lines, frowth giants roared as they waded among the enemy, swinging huge staves, knocking the reavers’ legs from under them. Runelords then dispatched the wounded beasts.
Myrrima was nowhere to be seen. Five reavers lay clumped on the battlefield where he had killed his reaver, including a huge scarlet sorceress emblazoned with runes.
His piebald mare galloped toward him, dragging its reins.
He leapt onto its back.
The reaver that he’d targeted lay dead. Usually when a man lanced a reaver, the monster would flail at the lance, trying to draw it out, thereby snapping it. But by a stroke of good fortune, Borenson’s lance was still intact. He rode to it, his mare whinnying and throwing her head in fear. He drew out the shaft.
Armed now, he charged into the furrow of the reavers’ trail. A dozen reavers lay dead or dying.
He reached the far side of the trail, spotted Myrrima nearly half a mile away.
Reavers were fleeing west by the thousands, trying to escape the Runelords. Borenson could see a scarlet sorceress trundling over the plains with Myrrima in pursuit, Hoswell trying to keep up. She spurred her horse faster, charged it from behind, and buried an arrow in the joint under its right leg. The leg spasmed, and the sorceress faltered, skidding on her belly. She whirled and came up roaring, bringing a staff of purest crystal to bear.
Vile energies seemed to pulse through the staff, and it blazed. A cloud of green smoke burst from it.
Myrrima reined in her mount just as Hoswell let an arrow fly into the monster’s sweet triangle. The mage flipped to her side, pawing at her wound.
Myrrima and Hoswell wheeled away from the green fog, clinging to their saddles. They hastened back toward Borenson. The mage dropped her staff and rolled, as if trying to dislodge an attacker. Then she just flailed her huge arms as she died.
Borenson reined his mount.
A barbarian from Internook rode up beside him, watched Myrrima with unabashed admiration. The man had a sealskin coat, and yellow corn-braids hanging from his sideburns. He’d painted the left half of his face orange. He bore a huge, wide-bladed battle-ax in a style that his folk called a “reaper.” It was purpled in inky reaver gore.
The barbarian offered Borenson a silver flask, nodded at Myrrima. “If I had a hound with half her heart, I’d never hunt again. I’d say the word, and it would drag bears home for dinner.”
Borenson took a swig from the flask, found that it was mead. It tasted like warm piss, but at least it rinsed the vomit from his mouth.
“Aye,” he said. He felt an unnameable something, an unreasonable pride. He felt proud of Myrrima.
Warriors began to cheer. The charge had been an overwhelming success. The remainder of the horde fled south, redoubling speed.
Myrrima rode back, dark eyes flashing. She looked euphoric. “I ran out of arrows!”
He’d seen her quiver when she rode into battle. She’d had at least three dozen. Suddenly he looked at the dozens of dead reavers lying around all in a knot. While he’d managed only a single kill, Myrrima and Sir Hoswell had carved a swath.
Myrrima doesn’t understand me at all, he thought. Myrrima wanted his love, and like nearly all women, she thought him incapable of ever loving more than one woman at a time.
It was strange. She talked about how warriors were not really in touch with their feelings, and how she wanted that from a man. But it was a lie.
She really wanted him to have strong feelings for her, yet cut off any desires for other women.
But it seemed to Borenson that women were like food laid out in a feast. One woman might be a satisfying loaf of bread, another an intoxicating wine, a third as sustaining as a boar’s ham, a fourth as sweet as a tart.
Who would want to eat only one single course at a feast? No one. And if a man would not devote himself to eating one thing for a single feast, how could a person ask him to devote a lifetime to eating that one food alone?
That was the rub. Every woman wants to think of herself as a whole feast. Would a loaf of bread say to its master, don’t eat that mince pie? Or would the wine demand, don’t eat the buttered parsnips?
The notion was absurd.
His feelings for Saffira weren’t gone. They’d never go. She was an intoxicating wine. He’d never desired a woman as acutely as he had Saffira, and suspected that he never would again. The feelings he’d had for her weren’t mere lust. Her endowments of glamour aroused a sense of devotion, a need to serve her that was so powerfully compelling that it caused physical pain.
That was the secret and the power of glamour.
While Saffira was alive, he’d been in torment, entangled by the need to serve her. He’d felt… that he approached a unique singleness of purpose, a form of purity.
He’d always wanted to feel that way about someone.
Yet while he was charmed by Saffira’s beauty and enthralled by her glamour, he hadn’t really respected her. Thus, he hadn’t been able to give his heart to her fully.
His feelings for Myrrima on the other hand were growing in odd directions. His lust for her paled to insignificance when compared to his feelings for Saffira.
But his respect for her was taking on immense proportions. He sensed that while Saffira might have been wine, Myrrima was the meat of the meal. She was the one that could sustain him.
Thus as she rode back from killing the reaver mage, and the big barbarian at his side offered his highest words of praise, Borenson felt more than proud of Myrrima, he felt a kind of respect that he’d never felt for a woman, mingled with a sense of foreboding.
To the south, a battle horn blew, calling men to regroup. He looked toward the sound. Men shouted in warning, ran toward the south. Frowth giants roared.
Gaborn’s charge had been aimed at the reavers’ rearmost troops. To the south, the huge line still snaked ahead for miles.
Many of those reavers had begun to turn. Thousands of the monsters charged back now toward their dead. They spread out, began forming a battle line half a mile wide with ranks twenty or thirty deep. It was a formidable front.
Gaborn’s heralds furiously blew their horns. A few hundred Runelords began forming a new front of their own.
The barbarian at Borenson’s side shouted gleefully, “Looks as if they’ll make a fight of it!”
Runelords spurred their mounts toward the new battle line. Borenson shouted and wheeled his charger.
He was among the first to reach Gaborn’s new front. But the king seemed uncertain. The Runelords who stood with him were ill-armed. Not one in twenty had a lance.
From the west, Binnesman raced to the battle lines, with Averan astride his horse. Gaborn’s Days followed on his own mare.
Averan warned Gaborn, “It’s the sorceresses, come back to feed. There was a fell mage here. They’ll want to harvest her and the rest of their kin.”
Borenson had never seen reavers harvest, but he’d heard tales. They’d rip out the brains of the dead or the glands beneath their arms. Sometimes they’d devour their brothers whole.
Averan said forcefully, “We can’t let them harvest the dead. The Waymaker may be among them.”
Gaborn’s brows furrowed. Blindsiding sluggish reavers was one thing. But now the child begged him to stand against a frontal assault—thousands of reavers confronting his ill-armed troops.
Gaborn’s eyes flashed, and he looked at the reavers. “Hold the lines!” he shouted to the massing troops. “We’ll allow no harvesting!”
The reavers gathered, creating a wall of flesh about five hundred yards north. Reavers that had fled Gaborn’s charge now circled into the rear of the massing horde. Huge blade-bearers began to jostle through the ranks, gaining better position. Here and there, reaver scouts began to creep near, heads held high, philia waving as they scented the air.
The reavers were far enough away that they could not see Gaborn’s army, yet they could smell the human host.
The air filled with energy, as if from a rising storm. Borenson’s blood thrummed through his veins. This battle wasn’t over. It had barely begun.
26
HOLDING FAST
You need not fear a man who bears arms and armor—unless he also bears a deadly resolve.
—Erden Geboren
Averan studied the battle lines forming, sensed from the reavers’ body language that things were quickly getting out of hand. The reaver scouts approached cautiously. They’d take three strides, then halt, rise to their back legs and wave their philia in the air, turning eyeless heads this way and that.
The reavers were worried but determined. They’d not hold back for long. As soon as the scouts spotted Gaborn’s troops, learned their number and position, they would tell their masters how few men stood against them.
Gaborn seemed unsure how to withstand the horde.
“They’re going to charge you,” Averan warned. “If you want to stop them, kill the horde’s new leader.”
Gaborn looked at the mass of reavers, brow furrowed. “Which one is it?”
The question left Averan astonished. The answer seemed obvious. But she was looking at the horde now through reaver’s eyes. “The mage at the center of the front lines, hiding behind the two blade-bearers.”
Gaborn spotted the reaver slowly. She was a big brute, glittering from fiery runes tattooed on her thick outer skin. She held a gleaming red staff. Averan thought her size and the configuration of her runes should have warned anyone that she was Battle Weaver’s successor. Her name was a scent, the scent of Blood on Stone.
Yet Averan saw that Gaborn had been searching to her right, where a knot of mages in the front rank acted as decoys. Blood on Stone was well concealed.
Gaborn swore. It would be hard to get her.
It was an eerie moment. Nearly all of the Runelords had ridden forward and were bracing for a charge. Eight frowth giants, spattered with reaver gore, lined up at their backs. Two had fallen in the battle.
Averan glanced over her shoulder at the wylde. Spring strolled through the midst of the dead reavers, some of which she’d killed herself, mindlessly feeding.
“Milord,” Borenson shouted, urging his mount through the ranks. “May I suggest archers? We’ve a few men with steel bows.”
“Archers?” Gaborn asked. “Erden Geboren never used archers.”
“But he didn’t have bows made of Sylvarresta s spring steel!”
Gaborn licked his lips. “I’d not thought of that. Can it work?”
“Myrrima and Hoswell killed three or four dozen of them in the charge.”
Averan found it hard to imagine Myrrima killing dozens of reavers.
“Archers,” Gaborn shouted, “to me!”
Over a hundred Runelords rode forward. Some had their bows still wrapped in canvas. These were powerful lords. Many moved so swiftly that it baffled Averan’s eyes. By the time she realized that the lords were drawing bows from their cases, many bows were strung.
“The big sorceress with the red staff,” Gaborn ordered the archers. “Take her swiftly.”
“Kill the scouts, too,” Averan offered. “Before they get close enough to see us.”
“Lancers!” Gaborn shouted, waving toward the scouts. Two hundred lancers rode out of the crowd.
The men prepared for their charge, and someone blew a torn. The force horses surged across the field.
By the time the reaver scouts saw danger approach, and reacted by skittering backward, the lancers took them.
The archers raced within a hundred yards of the reavers’ lines.
Blade-bearers leapt forward, turning themselves into living shields as they sought to preserve their sorceress.
Arrows sped from steel bows, riddling the fell mage and those that sought to protect her. She lurched backward a pace, died as she bowled against the reavers behind.
For their part, the reavers in the main rank reacted slowly. The blade-bearers and common troops backed away and stood waving their forearms and weapons, but held their line, having no other command before them. Far more dangerous were the blade-bearers well behind the lines.
They began hurling stones in a deadly hail.
Gaborn’s archers and lancers all wheeled their mounts and galloped away from the front. Rocks hurtled from the sky. Even though the reavers threw blindly, some stones struck home.
