Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (29 page)

           
"Remain within the aegis of my
spell." Ochen beckoned them on, currents still pulsing from the globe that
contained them, his voice dropping as he added, "But I fear we shall find
little enough."

           
He spoke aright: they followed the
nimbi to a small clearing redolent of dmonds and burning in equal measure, and
found the kotu-zen. Both men were dead, their throats opened, their armor
gashed. Of the creatures there was no sign, save tatters of skin, fragments of
bone, little pieces of armor and clothing, the brush painted with blood.

           
Ochen sighed, shaping a sign of
blessing over each corpse. "I'd hoped to take one, at least, alive,"
he murmured. "We could learn much of Rhythamun's magic from them, but he
outthought me."

           
"At least we know they may be
slain," said Bracht. "Whatever they are."

           
"Slain, aye." The wazir
snorted, shaking his head, gesturing at the remnants of the creatures.
"But only at dreadful risk to whomever they hold."

           
"How so?" asked Katya.
"Your magic destroyed them. After they had killed these warriors, I
think."

           
"Exactly," said Ochen.
"After.
Had these men lived when my
magic struck, they'd have suffered the same fate."

           
Katya frowned a question. Calandryll
perceived the thrust of the sorcerer's thinking. "Your magic exploded the
creatures," he said, "and had these kotu-zen lived then, they, too,
would have been consumed."

           
"Aye." Ochen nodded.
"You see the way of it— whatever gramaryes Rhythamun employed to make
these things reacts thus to offensive magic. The fatherless creature counts on
that to limit me, may Horul consign him to eternal suffering!"

           
"I hear more wizardly
riddling," Bracht said. "Do you explain in words a simple man might
understand?"

           
"Do these sad monsters take a
man," Ochen explained patiently, "then they'll kill him."

           
"That much," said Bracht,
head ducking toward the luckless kotu-zen, "I had understood."

           
"And you saw the arrows
hit?" Ochen asked. "With little enough effect?"

           
Bracht nodded.

           
Ochen said, "So magic becomes
the best defense—the expected defense. But Rhythamun has countered that, for do
I act to protect those his creatures seize by destroying his minions, I slay
those held. Thus, he limits me."

           
"But these men were not
destroyed," said Bracht. "Not by your magic."

           
"They were already dead,"
returned the wazir, "and so impervious to my sortilege. Magic is a thing
that works against the living, a thing of this world, not much designed to work
against the dead.”

           
"Ahrd!" Understanding
dawned; Bracht's eyes opened wide. "You say that if one of us is taken,
your magic shall slay us."

           
"You've the grasp of it,"
said Ochen, his voice somber. "Should I attempt the destruction of your
captor, I destroy you."

           
"Why then take these
warriors?" Katya asked. "Why not me? Or Bracht, Calandryll?"

           
"Such creatures as Rhythamun
has made of the tensai are not very intelligent." The wazir shrugged,
stroked the wispy silver of his long mustache. "Strong, aye. Mightily
difficult to slay by any means other than magic. Filled with hate and blood lust.
In fact, little better than rabid wolves, and not much more discerning. They
attack—they care little whom they take—only that they slay."

           
"You know something of
them?" Calandryll asked. "What they are?"

           
"A little," said Ochen.
"Not much, save what any wazir learns: none in these lands practices such
foul magic. Am I right, then they are what we name uwagi. They are men changed
by magic into semblance of animals, were-things that answer only to their
appetites and their creator. They are very determined and very hard to
slay."

           
"And these are what we
face?" asked Bracht.

           
"I believe it so, aye,"
said the wazir gravely. "Uwagi and tensai still men yet."

           
"So—we face brigands." The
Kern raised the thumb of his left hand; the index finger: "Were-
creatures." The middle finger rose: "Rebellious armies." The
next digit: "Rhythamun." The little finger: "And—do we survive
all of them—perhaps the Mad God himself."

           
Ochen nodded soberly. "That
would seem the way of it."

           
"Then let's not delay,"
said Bracht, his face rigidly solemn. "Such a panoply of enemies awaits us
we shall need time to deal with them all."

           
For a moment Ochen stared
blank-faced at the Kern, then his lined features composed into a grin.
"Aye," he said. "We'd best hurry, lest they all grow impatient."

           
Bracht laughed then, and they took
up the fallen kotu-zen and carried the bodies back to the road, where Chazali
waited.

           
Another funeral pyre was built,
ignited by Ochen's magic, and the corpses given to the cleansing flames.

           
Calandryll watched the
sorcerer-priest perform the rites, aware that each such delay afforded
Rhythamun further advantage, thinking that the enemy need not slay him, or
Bracht, or Katya, but only take Chazali's men, one by one, slowing them that
the warlock find his way, unhindered, to the gate in Anwar-teng, or on to the
Borrhun-maj, and work those gramaryes that should raise Tharn and give the
world to the Mad God. He curbed his impatience, telling himself that men who
had died for the quest deserved those services their beliefs demanded, and
waited to ride on.

           
THAT night the howling came again,
the worse for its repetition, the horses fretful, frightened, and sleepless,
the humans little better. Immediate fear was set aside, for Ochen ringed the
camp with such gramaryes as hung like silken fire among the surrounding trees,
glimmering, burning the few arrows that shafted out of the darkness and holding
off the uwagi and the tensai, both. But sleep was again impossible, ruptured by
the screaming, so that tempers shortened, the kotu-zen growing anxious to
confront enemies in honest combat, frustrated, loosing arrows at random into
the darkness beyond Ochen's warding occult light. And the questers no less so,
aware that their adversary likely suffered no such delay, but pressed on toward
his fell goal.

           
The trees, heads swinging
ceaselessly in anticipation of ambush, eyes smarting from weariness, tension
their constant companion. But no attack came that morning. The sun rose into a
blue sky flagged with pennants of high clouds white as driven snow. A breeze
blew cool from the north, fresh and scented with pine. Birds sang among the
timber. Twice deer leapt across the road, once a huge, tusked boar charged
snorting from their path. Toward noonday they came on a village.

           
Calandryll stared at the silent
pastoral scene, calling up those exercises Ochen had taught him to open his
senses to awareness of the occult. Immediately he felt the horrid aftermath of
fell magic, akin to the sense of dread that had filled the keep on the Kess
Imbrun. It seemed then the pine scent the breeze carried was undercut with a
charnel reek, a hint of almonds. He drew his sword; saw Ochen frown, squinting
at the palisaded huts. The fields stood empty, devoid of animals or toiling gettu.
Neither was any sign of movement visible between the open gates; no smoke rose,
no dogs barked. There was only stillness, a sense of waiting that prickled at
the skin between his shoulders.

           
"None lives here," the
wazir murmured softly, sadly.

           
They splashed across the stream, the
kotu-zen a wall of black armor around the questers as Chazali halted, peering
between the gates. He barked a command and five men sprang to the ground,
swords drawn, running into the village.

           
They returned soon enough, to report
all dead within. All slaughtered, butchered like the scouts.

           
Chazali mouthed a curse that was
muffled by his veil. The kotu-zen muttered angrily. Ochen said, "They look
to unnerve us." Calandryll thought he held his voice controlled.

           
"Do you perform the rites?"
Chazali seemed both enraged and subdued, wrath balanced by the enormity of the
massacre, for the first time unsure of himself. "Have we time?"

           
"We owe them as much."
Ochen dismounted, calling over his shoulder for torches to be fashioned.
"Albeit briefly."

           
He walked, chanting, to the gates,
arms raised as brands were quickly made, sparks struck. He gestured, and the
kotu-zen ran once more among the rude huts, putting them to the torch. The
timber was dry: within moments fire began its cleansing work, a roiling tower
of black smoke insulting the azure purity of the sky. Calandryll pinched his
nostrils against the stink of burning flesh, aware that ‘ the oppressive sense
of evil magic faded as the wazir ended his incantation. Ochen lowered his arms,
his chant dying, and walked wearily back to his horse.

           
THE
road climbed after, the terrain no longer a succession of valleys but a
series of tremendous steps, as though terraced, each gradual ascent leading to
a wide shelf before rising again. Spruce, hemlock, and larches rose tall and
dark, the shadows between them the more menacing for the carnage left behind,
the knowledge that further assaults must surely wait ahead.

           
They went on past noon, riding until
the pall of smoke was no longer visible before a halt was called, and that to
rest the animals, for none present had much appetite for food, as if the taint
of the uwagis' work lingered, sour.

           
"Ahrd," Bracht muttered as
he watched the black stallion forage, "but I think I'd sooner they joined
in battle than this."

           
"Aye." Calandryll nodded.
"This kind of warfare plays hard on the mind."

           
"It's as Ochen says,"
Katya remarked. "They look to wear us down."

           
"And succeed," said
Bracht. "Shall we sleep this night, think you?"

           
The Vanu woman shrugged, sighing,
shaking flaxen hair from her face. Like Bracht's, like Calandryll's, her eyes
were dulled, hollowed by the dark crescents beneath. Of them all—save Ochen,
who seemed inured by his occult talent—only Cennaire showed no sign of
exhaustion. Her eyes remained bright, her complexion vital, and Calandryll,
intending a compliment, said, "Adversity favors you, it seems."

           
"How so?" she asked,
instantly cautious.

           
"Lady," he murmured,
smiling, "you appear fresh as these pines. While we ..." He chuckled
ruefully, wiping at his eyes.

           
Alarm grew: Cennaire had not thought
that so small a thing might betray her. Nervous, she glanced from one to the
other, seeing them all weary, the badges of fatigue stamped clear on their
faces, in their eyes. Deliberately, she let her shoulders slump, her mouth
slacken a trifle, and shook her head.

           
"You are kind, sir.
But"—she shaped a yawn— "I'd as soon a good night's sleep as any
here."

           
"Perhaps tonight," he said
gallantly, echoed by Bracht's disbelieving snort.

           
She smiled, hoping it was suitably
convincing, aware that Katya looked her way, the grey gaze thoughtful, and
rubbed at her eyes. She was grateful that Chazali called for them to mount
then, preventing further conversation, further examination.
I must be more careful,
she told
herself.
I must remember to act always
ordinary, to show no sign of what I am.
And beneath that precautionary
consideration ran another thought, an undercurrent faint as the rustling of the
breeze among the timber: that she might sooner tell them everything, throw
herself on their mercy, swear allegiance to their cause and so terminate this
endless subterfuge.

           
Then,
No!
To do that was to risk too much. To risk everything; to chance
losing all hope of regaining her heart; perhaps to risk death. Certainly to
risk Calandryll's revulsion: she wondered why that troubled her so.

           
THE
day closed toward evening. The breeze died away, the pines silent, ominous
as the light grew dusky. Cloud thickened overhead, squadrons of birds winged
roostward. The road widened a little, and Chazali bellowed over the steady
drumbeat of the hooves that they should find a site soon, halt for the night.

           
And from where Ochen rode, behind
the kiriwashen, there came a warning shout, a flash of light, silvery gold
lanced through with crimson, like darting flame.

           
Confusion then: arrows that sang
from the twilit trees, and the dreadful yammering screams of the uwagi, the
shrilling of struck horses. Chazali's breastplate was suddenly decorated with
shafts. A horse went down, its rider tumbling, rising with sword in hand,
roaring* a battle shout as he charged headlong at the trees. Arrows burned,
tinder in the fiery light that lashed from Ochen. A racing, howling creature
evaporated in a gust of noisome flame. The archers among the kotu-zen loosed
answering shots: men screamed and died. Things once men slashed with nails
become talons, fangs that thrust from elongated jaws, at men and animals,
indiscriminate.

           
Chazali bellowed, heeling his horse
to a charge, curved blade raising high, falling, rising again. A man shrieked,
staggering a scant few steps from the shelter of the trees, blood gouting from
his riven chest, a sundered arm flapping useless at his side.

           
In the fading light the shape of
fallen pines showed across the road, a barrier too high to jump, bowmen there.

           
Chazali shouted again, bringing his
horse round, hard, back to the road. Red light like serpents' tongues darted
from where Ochen stood, and where it struck uwagi died, exploding in eruptions
of hideous fire.

           
Then they were in close, the tensai
not altered by Rhythamun's fell magic holding back, the wazir, afraid of
destroying friend with foe, forced to concentrate his gramarye on the human,
unchanged attackers.

           
Bracht's falchion shone silver in
the magical radiance, hacking down, darting swift as Ochen's bolts, the black
stallion shrilling, kicking, deadly as its rider. Katya's saber moved no
slower, though she fought her untrained mount even as she struck. Both blades
and hooves clove flesh, gore spouting from the howling grey shapes that closed
like rabid wolves on the grouping kotu-zen. But with scant effect, as if the
changeling creatures lived beyond pain, ignoring wounds that would have felled
any mortal thing, driven by Rhythamun's sorcery.

           
Where Calandryll struggled to
control his panicked chestnut, the uwagi carved a path through the kotu-zen.
Men were dragged from their mounts; horses fell, screaming. Calandryll's
straightsword was lifted, about to fall even as Ochen shouted, “
No!
For Horul's sake—remember, lest you
die!"

           
He remembered: sheathed the blade
and drew his dirk instead. Drove the lesser blade into a snarling face that
tore itself away, careless of the wound that severed its cheek, returning to
the attack even as he struck again. Uselessly: the uwagi crushed against the
gelding, the sheer force of its assault sending the animal stumbling, its
footing lost. Calandryll caught brief sight of jet armor, a sword that stabbed
past him to score a red hole in a chest covered with thick-sprouting hair. Then
hands, horribly strong, clutched his wrists and dragged him from the saddle of
the falling horse. A blow landed hard on his temple. The gelding's weight
pressed down on him. Light burst in his eyes, painful. He thought he shouted;
knew vaguely that he was held, hauled from under the horse.

           
THE
fight was brief, more skirmish than battle. The tensai—those yet human—were
not enough to stand against Chazali's kotu-zen. Their armor was makeshift, a
random assortment of bits and pieces owned when they became outlaw or looted
from their victims, their weapons not much better. They were more accustomed to
preying on defenseless villagers than trained warriors and they did not last
long. The kotu-zen grouped defensive at first, then dismounted and moved out
into the trees on foot: those brigands who did not flee were cut down. Eleven
of Chazali's men were slain, and five horses. Five tensai were taken alive.
Four throats were slit on Chazali's order—the fourth was brought to Ochen,
thrown down on his knees before the wazir.

           
Katya and Bracht pushed urgently
through the watching kotu-zen, blades naked in their hands, anger and fear in
their eyes.

           
"Calandryll's taken!"
Bracht wiped blood from his falchion,- set the point on the tensai's cheek.
"Where? Do you tell me, or do I prick out your eyes?"

           
The Jesseryte warriors murmured
approvingly; the outlaw moaned. Blood dribbled from a cut across his forehead,
more from a wound on his shoulder. Then a flow from his cheek as the Kern's
blade dug deeper. The acrid stench of urine soiled the evening.

           
"Where?"

           
Ochen said, "Wait! There's an
easier way to this."

           
"Save I carve out his answers,
I see none," Bracht snarled. "And in a while he'll see not at
all."

           
"Trust me," the wazir
said. "Put up your blade."

           
The Kern eyed him a moment. Katya
said, "And Cennaire. Where is she?"

           
"Wait!" Ochen's voice
became commanding. He motioned them away. Reluctantly, Bracht sheathed his
sword, though his hand remained menacingly on the hilt. Ochen said, "This
way lies truth, without subterfuge."

           
He gestured to Chazali, who took
hold of the tensai's unbound hair and yanked the head back. Ochen set a hand
under the tensai's chin, raising the man's face. Tears streaked the dirt there,
mingling with the blood as the wazir fixed his eyes, tawny gimlets now, on the
captive's.