Bastion of Darkness (2 page)

Bryan’s gaze drifted lower, to the sword hanging on his hip. He hadn’t found much use of that weapon of late; no talon ever seemed to get close enough to him for melee combat. Truly the young warrior missed the dance of swordplay, but he agreed with Rhiannon’s assessment. This war they waged, this mission to aid any human survivors trapped on this side of the swollen river, was too important for them to take foolish chances. Their duty was to kill talons as quickly and efficiently as possible with the least chance of getting themselves wounded.

Bryan patted his sword hilt, as if to reassure the weapon that he had not forgotten it, then fitted an arrow to his bowstring and peeked over the ridge again.

A sleek white form, barely visible against the snowy background, darted by on silent, padded feet.

Baerendil cougar, Bryan knew: a hundred and fifty pounds of fighting frenzy. Despite its proximity, the young man was not afraid, was not even uncomfortable. He knew that the cougar was guided by Rhiannon, and woe to the talon enemies.

The witch’s daughter remained far back from the expected scene of the approaching battle, but Bryan knew that she would indeed play a vital role, directing her feline charges through a telepathic link. Her work in the matter would be limited really, simply to point out the enemy and beg the aid of her animal friends. As far as tactics went, no human, not even a wizard or witch, could hope to match the cunning of Baerendil cougars.

The talon band, just under a score in number, noted the cat’s movement shortly thereafter, but paid it little heed. These talons had lived long in the Baerendils, and they knew that the cougars were usually solitary creatures, coming together only to mate or to battle over territory. While a lone talon might fall easy prey to such a beast, a group usually had little to fear.

Of course, though the talons could not know it, this particular cougar was not acting alone. It had come to the call of Rhiannon, as had the dozen other cats even then moving silently into position behind the distracted monsters.

Bryan eased his bowstring to rest and marveled at it all. The lone cougar darted from snowbank to snowbank, paralleling the movements of the talon band, demanding their attention. Finally the creatures decided to drive the pestering cat away, and threw a couple of spears in its general direction, hooting and hollering, kicking up snow and making a general ruckus. That only made the attack from behind even more of a surprise, as the dozen cougars, the hunting pride, leaped in at the talons as a wall of claws and fangs. Before the talons had
even figured out what had hit them, half of them were dead or incapacitated, and those remaining were in no defensive position or formation. Some attempted feeble swings with spears that had been aimed the wrong way, but the cats were too close and too quick, springing past such tactics to bear their newest prey to the ground, where death found the talons, swift and sure.

The remaining talons wisely ran off, sprinting every which way.

But then Bryan of Corning went to work. Up came his bow, the half-elf taking a bead on one talon that was coming straight at him. The arrow hit the beast with such force as to knock it back two steps, where the dazed and mortally wounded creature was summarily buried by a cougar that had come in pursuit.

Bryan dismissed the creature with hardly a thought, already turning his sights upon the next target quickly, this talon running across his field of vision to the left. The young warrior pulled back his bowstring, holding the powerful draw perfectly steady and level, the arrow tip turning smoothly to follow the fleeing creature. Bryan noted the distance and the creature’s speed, then shifted his aim just ahead of it and let fly.

Right through the lung, and the talon skidded down in a heap.

Bryan sighed as he turned his attention back to regard the area of main fighting, to see that the battle was already over. Before him lay a scene of utter carnage, a massacre so complete that no cougar had even been slightly wounded. The young half-elf shook his head and patted his sword once more, a warrior’s lament. Somehow, with Rhiannon and her animal friends beside him, this was getting too easy. First the witch would speak with birds to learn the exact number and location of their enemies. Then she conferred with other animals—
otters and raccoons, wolves and bears and cougars—to determine the best area in the region for their strike, then bade the deadliest of her friends to join in the attack.

This was the third such rout in two weeks.

Bryan shook his head again and gave a respectful glance at the closest cougar, lying flat on its belly, heavy tail twitching excitedly as it fed upon the talon Bryan had shot down in front of it.

Then the half-elf turned to leave, and realized that he had gotten careless, that he had abandoned his own warrior instincts in the belief that they would not be needed.

The talon standing right behind him brought its axe overhead and down hard, chopping at Bryan’s head. All the nimble half-elf could do was lift up Rhiannon’s bow in both hands over his head, hoping to slow the wicked weapon’s descent.

To Bryan’s amazement, to the talon’s amazement, the bow stopped the axe blade cold, blocked it as surely as if it had hit a stone wall.

Bryan didn’t pause to consider the implications. He put his right foot under him and came forward a rushing step, punching out with his left hand and pulling in with his right to turn the bow and the axe out wide. A final heave sent the axe flying wide, and Bryan pulled the bow in close, then jabbed out with its tapered tip, poking the talon hard in the face, sending it stumbling backward. The half-elf could have quickly finished the task then, by leaping forward and beating the creature senseless, but he hesitated and dropped the bow, drawing forth his sword instead and quickly pulling his shield over his forearm.

It took the talon some time to gather its wits, but Bryan, wanting this fight more than he cared to admit—and more than he would ever admit to Rhiannon!—patiently waited. The half-elf preferred always to let his
adversary make the first move, but he recognized that this talon’s heart for the fight, especially with such a scene of carnage before it, had long flown, and it was thinking more of fleeing than of attacking. So, as soon as the creature had steadied itself, ahead came Bryan, his magnificent sword, his father’s elven-crafted sword, flashing in the sunny, snowy brightness. The talon lumbered awkwardly, but somehow managed a parry with its heavy axe, and even tried to bring its weapon about for a fast counter.

Bryan let it complete the maneuver, let the axe turn about and come swishing in. He was down on one knee before it ever got close, though, and as it swished overhead, the half-elf poked his sword straight out, scoring a wicked hit on the talon’s breast.

The creature tried to recover, but the momentum of the wide-flying axe forced it off balance, and that, combined with the prodding sword, confused the talon. Trying to counter, trying to retreat, it got its feet all tangled up and went down on its back.

Bryan moved forward for the kill, but changed his mind and veered far out to the side when he heard a low growl behind him.

The cougar leaped atop the talon in a flash of white lightning, its powerful maw clamping firmly on the unfortunate creature’s skinny neck.

Bryan sheathed his sword and went to retrieve the bow, hoping the scar upon its beautiful wood would not be too evident. He was not surprised, whatever logic told him, to find that there was not a mark at all on the enchanted bow, to find that the heavy axe and its undeniably sharp blade had not even scratched the polished wood.

“Too easy,” Bryan lamented, and he gathered up his belongings and set off in search of the young witch.

He found her resting in a hollow, her back against a tree, her eyes closed. She hadn’t used much of her magic, certainly nowhere near the amount Bryan had previously witnessed, when Rhiannon had gathered the very strength of the earth itself and hurled it skyward to battle the gloom of Morgan Thalasi’s thunderclouds. But lately, Bryan noted, even the simplest of enchantments seemed to tire Rhiannon, and he shuddered to think of what might happen if the young witch was ever forced to utilize her powers to their greatest limit again. Rhiannon had nearly died on that occasion when she had battled Thalasi, and not from any attack from the Black Warlock, but rather from her own sheer exhaustion, as if she had thrown a substantial amount of her own life force into that magical response.

Bryan remembered that day vividly, remembered cradling beautiful, unconscious Rhiannon in his arms, remembered how pale and fragile she had seemed, a flower dying in the cold wind. He had feared that he would lose her then, and he had realized that if she did indeed go away, a huge part of his own heart would forever die beside her.

He let her sleep now, just sat facing her, watching her, admiring the soft curve of her, the way her lips slightly parted, the beauty of her lithe form, a dancer’s body with strong but smooth muscles. He was in love with her, only her, with all his heart and all his soul.

He couldn’t deny it; he didn’t want to deny it.

He wanted to shout it out to all the world.

H
E WAITED FOR
the dark of a moonless night, his time, the time of lurking nightmares. His substance a shadow blacker than the darkest hole, the wraith of Hollis Mitchell glided along the riverbank. A creature half of this world, half of the realm of death, he made no weighted impression in the snow, but every so often he absently flicked his hollow-headed mace, his scepter, and loosed a small shower of black flakes that burned the white powder, that melted deeper, right through the watery stuff to stain the very ground beneath it.

All the while, the wraith’s red-glowing eyes held their focus across the river, to the hundreds of burning fires showing the campsites of Pallendara’s army. Only a few short months ago, those fires had been more than matched by the glorious blaze of Morgan Thalasi’s army, which Hollis Mitchell had commanded, but the talons were gone now, all fled into the fields and mountains, many back to their swampy homes miles and miles away. They had scattered when they saw Mitchell, their general, drop from the blasted bridge, and when they saw their highest master, the Black Warlock himself, hurled to the ground by the great bolt of the witch’s daughter, and when they saw the river itself rise up before them, defeating their charge and sweeping thousands of them away to a watery death.

This western bank of the River Ne’er Ending had remained dark since then, every night, an empty plain of blackness.

Until this night. The wraith had seen it; a single campfire, burning low on the plain less than a half mile from the river. Perhaps it had been set by talons, though the ugly beasts didn’t normally set fires this close to potential enemies. Perhaps, the hungry wraith hoped, it had been set by human refugees trying to make their way to King Benador’s side, or even better, by scouts from the Pallendara army. In truth, so full of venom was the wraith, that he knew it really didn’t matter. Mitchell had pulled himself from the river far to the south and had gradually worked his way back to this spot, pausing only when he found talons or humans to slaughter. Those kills had proven few and far between, however, and hardly satisfying to this creature of death, this unnatural perversion whose very sustenance was the horror of others, the life force of others.

Mitchell had not killed in more than two weeks; he veered to the northwest, away from the river.

“Cold again,” one of the men remarked, a tall and lean fellow of forty winters. His beard gave testament to his observations, for icy crystals glittered among the curly gray-and-brown whiskers in the firelight.

“Cold every night,” a second man said. He was similar in build and features to the other—indeed, was his brother—except that he sported only a bushy mustache. “I’m wishing that the war had gone through the winter, leaving us to our duties in the warmer spring!”

“But how many might’ve died for your comfort, then?” the third and last of the group asked as he walked back in toward the fire, a huge black-and-tan dog at his side. He was the oldest of the party by at least ten years,
his hair and beard silvery gray. But his eyes still held the sharp, twinkling blue hue of his youth.

“Very nice, Clouster,” the first said. “So good of you to put things in such a comforting light.”

“Comfort?” Clouster replied, spitting heavily on the ground, that simple action drawing a growl from the nervous, dangerous canine. “Comfort’s not for the likes of us. I told you I’d teach you, so you best learn well and fast; a scout’s life is a thankless, dirty one, and if you cannot get your satisfaction in knowing a well-done job, then, by the Colonnae, you’re in the wrong line of work, I say!”

“Benador needs us,” the second brother agreed. “All of Pallendara needs us.”

“When they finish the bridge and come rushing across, they’ll be better served if they know the positioning of the talon forces,” Clouster added.

“What few remain,” the first brother grumbled.