Shadowbred (27 page)

Miklos held the reins with one hand and his rapier in the other. He slashed quickly and opened the throat of the man Kavin had wounded. The other dived aside and his cloak caused him to disappear into the whipgrass.

Miklos swung off the horse and knelt beside Kavin. Kavin focused on his tanned face, his moustache, his black hair streaked with gray. The features were like a mask, floating on nothingness. Everything else was a blur. Kavin tried to speak.

“Say nothing,” Miklos ordered.

Miklos picked him up and tried to sling him over his horse. Kavin heard the sound of crossbow fire. Miklos exclaimed, stiffened. He dropped Kavin on his back.

Kavin tried to rise but could barely move. He turned his head and saw his brother on his knees with five crossbow bolts sticking from his back. More firing, and three more sank into his chest. Miklos swayed and fell face down beside Kavin. Kavin heard the crossbow bolts snap against the ground as his brother fell.

Tears welled in Kavin’s eyes. He struggled to breathe, to pull out his wand. His body would not answer. He felt his heart beating irregularly, failing.

He reached out for his brother. He worked his fingers around Miklos’s forearm and inched them down to his hand. He took it in his own and held on with all the strength he had left.

Figures appeared around him. He could hear them, see them as silhouettes, but could not make out details or sounds. He assumed Forrin was among them, and tried to cutse him.

He heard his heart in his ears, slowing, slowing. He was floating away.

He squeezed his brother’s cooling hand and his heart stopped. For a single moment, he could see clearly. His last sight was a blue Sembian sky.

ŚŠŚ Ś<§>Ś

Malkur dismounted and looked down on the dead Selkirk brothers. The younger Selkirk’s face was blackened and swollen on his cheek from the poisoned dart. He looked at the scorch marks on his breeches caused by Kavin Selkirk’s wand.

“That stung,” he said, and kicked the dead noble in the head. The men near him chuckled.

Thell, one of his sergeants, stepped beside him to deliver a report. “Dertil is dead to the Selkirk’s blade. Whelin broke his neck when the horse went over. Ferd’s shoulder came out of joint but that’s easily fixed. Xinnen took bolts from the wand but lives. Two horses are down but we’ve got the Selkirk horses to replace them. That is all.”

Malkur frowned. He hated to lose men, especially a skilled man like Dertil. But he had others. “Collect Dertil’s gear, especially the cloak.” The magical camouflaging cloaks were an asset of the company, not one man.

Thell nodded agreement.

Behind them, Ferd shouted a string of expletives as Millen, a priest of Talos, forced his shoulder back into its joint.

“Where the Hells is Xinnen?” Malkur asked Thell. “The man gets hit with a wand and cannot keep up?”

Xinnen, one of the company’s wizards, had located the Selkirks through divinations. His illusions had masked the ambush, which the Selkirks had almost sniffed out.

“Here he is now,” said Thell.

Xinnen rode up at a trot, scowling. The men heckled him mercilessly for being out-wizarded by a nonwizard. Xinnen cursed them and called them sons of whores.

“Get down here, Xinnen,” Malkur ordered.

The mage dismounted and stood beside Thell and Malkur over the dead brothers.

“Serves them appropriately,” Xinnen said. “Find the magical gewgaws,” Malkur said. “We might as well have those.”

“The wand is magical, certainly,” Xinnen said. He spoke the words to a simple spell and studied the bodies. He turned both corpses over with his foot. He looked up at Malkur and said, “Their blades, their armor, Miklos’s boots, and the ring on his left hand. Nothing else.”

“Gather it, Thell,” Malkur said. “Then search them for coin.”

Thell set to his task. Malkur would distribute the booty among his men. A fee on top of their fee.

Malkur gathered his men. “Well done, Blades. Now saddle up. We ride for Ordulin immediately. Dertil and Whelin are coming back with us for a Sembian burial. But these,” he nodded at the Selkirks, “these were bury our here. And we bury them deep.”

He knew that what could not be found could not be resurrected. As of that moment, Miklos and Kavin Selkirk had vanished from Faerun’s history.

As the men saw to the Selkirks, he said, “And the first man who speaks of this outside the company has his tongue cut out before I gut him personally.”

The Blades nodded. They knew he spoke truly.

He allowed himself a smile of satisfaction. He hoped that Lorgan’s attack on the Saerloonian delegation went as smoothly.

ŚŠ• Ś€>Ś

Lorgan and his commanders sat atop their mounts in a stand of four towering elms, a few bowshots west of Rauthauvyr’s Road. The sea of whipgrass that covered the plains snapped in the gusting wind. Slate-colored clouds obscured the afternoon sun. If not for the drought, Lorgan would have expected rain by nightfall. As it was, he expected only clouds.

The rest of the Blades lounged in the grass under the trees, eating, sharpening blades, sparring, jesting.

Two riders approached from the west. Lorgan could not make

out enough detail to determine their identity but he could guess well enough.

“That is Phlen and Othel,” said Reht. His sergeant shielded his eyes and squinted into the distance. Reht had an archer’s eyes.

“They ride fast,” Lorgan said of his scouts. He turned to Enken, another of his sergeants. “Get the men up.”

Enken, a scarred, dark-hearted veteran with a talent for throwing knives, turned and gave a piercing whistle.

“Mount up, men!”

As one, the mercenaries left whatever pastime had occupied them, adjusted their armor and weapons, readied their mounts, and climbed into their saddles.

The two riders neared and Lorgan could make out Phlen’s long hair streaming behind him and Othel’s black leather armor.

The two scouts were racing, Lorgan saw. Both were bent low over their mounts’ necks. Each was shouting encouragement at his horse.

“My coin is on Phlen,” Reht said, and smoothed his moustache.

“Ten fivestars on Othel,” said Gavist, the youngest of the sergeants. He could not yet grow a respectable beard but he had won his rank and the respect of his men in several battles fought in Archendale.

“Twenty,” said Reht. “If you’ve the balls.”

“You are looser with your coin than a whore with her favors,” answered Gavist with a grin. “Twenty it is.”

As the riders drew nearer, the men and horses gathered around Lorgan and his commanders and shifted in anticipation. They knew, as did Lorgan, that the return of the scouts meant that an attack would soon follow. Horses whickered. Mail chinked. Men murmured.

Othel and Phlen tore over the plains. Their shouts carried on the wind. Othel wore his characteristic grin. He spurred his mount and pulled in front of Phlen.

Gavist laughed aloud.

Reht shouted, “Ride, Phlen, you orcwhelp!”

Othel widened the distance and Phlen surrendered the race.

Othel raised a fist in victory. He slowed as he approached the company and pulled his sweating mount to a stop.

“Sir,” he said to Lorgan, saluting in the Sembian military fashion. A former Sembian Helm, his military habits died hard.

Phlen arrived in the next moment, chagrined.

“That’s ten fivestars to me for outpacing you,” Othel said to him.

Phlen ignoted him and saluted Lorgan. “Sir.” “Report,” Lorgan said.

Othel said, “The Saerloonian delegation is north of us. We watched them pass. They did not see us. They are moving slowly along Rauthauvyr’s Road.”

“They number about thirty,” Phlen added. “All mounted, plus three carriages. I would wager on a wizard or priest in their midst.”

“Phlen’s wagers are poor bets though, sir,” Othel said with a g”n.

“Piss off,” Phlen said. Lorgan and the commanders chuckled.

“Wizards and priests are both likely,” Lorgan said. His own force numbered seventy-six men, including Vors and Paalin—two war priests of Talos—and the Blades’ most powerful wizard, Mennick.

“We could let them camp,” Reht said. “And come upon them at night.”

The Blades often used such a plan. The men were experienced night fighters. With Mennick’s spells and several enchanted items possessed by the company’s leaders, most of the men could be empowered to see in moonless darkness, and the tactic had worked in many battles.

“No,” he said. “If we assault them while camped at night, we will have a slaughter. We want to wound them and send them running northward for their lives. We will attack them on the road.” To Phlen and Othel he said, “Fall in with your squads.”

Lorgan turned to Vors and Paalin, his war priests. Both wore their brown hair long and tangled; both had deep-set, wild eyes. Lorgan attributed their crazed expressions to their worship of the god of destruction. Each bore a shield that featured the jagged lightning bolt of their deity.

“Hide your holy symbols and leave your shields behind,” Lorgan ordered them.

Vors snarled behind his beard. Paalin scowled and said, “I would sooner stick my hand up a dragon’s arse.”

“Leave them,” Lorgan ordered, “or I will stick my hand up yours and pull out your heart. We are to appear as if in service to Saerb and Selgaunt, priest. Are many of your brothers in the faith in service to those cities?”

The priests looked away, grumbling.

“Leave the shields or I will leave you behind altogether.”

Lorgan knew the threat of missing the battle would cause the berserker priests to see sense.

“Very well,” Vors barked, and tossed his shield to the ground. Paalin did the same. Both of them glared at Lorgan.

Lorgan smiled and looked to his sergeants. “Attack from the rear. Make sure they see you coming for a fair distance. Force them northward to Ordulin. It does not matter how many of them die, so long as some do. Minimize our own losses. Remember, we are not trying to wipe them out, just blood them. The carriages are not to be harmed or attacked and none of our men are left behind, dead or alive. Understood?”

All nodded.

“Let’s move out, then,” Lorgan said.

The sergeants pulled their horses around and issued readiness orders to the men.

With the rapidity and precision that had won the Blades more than twenty battles, the force moved out. They formed five squads, each led by one of Lorgan’s sergeants.

Vors and Paalin pulled colored glass spheres from their saddlebags and shattered them on an elm’s trunk, asking for Talos to find pleasure in the destruction and bless the men in the coming battle. Lorgan thumped both of the priests on the shoulder, mending any hard feelings.

“Reht and the archers to the rear,” Lorgan ordered.

Reht and his ten bowmen fell into formation at the rear. Lorgan, the priests, and Mennick fell in behind them.

When the group reached Rauthauvyr’s Road—a wide, packed earth road that stretched across Sembia’s eastern coastal region like a ribbon—they moved five abreast and accelerated into a gallop. The thunder of hooves shook the earth in all directions.

Aftet a half-hour of hard riding, they spotted the Saerloonian delegation ahead. Enken used hand signals to order the men into a crescent formation. Enken and Gavist’s men took the left; Borl and Scorral’s took the right. Reht and his archers took their bows in hand and formed a loose line within the crescent. Lorgan, the priests, and Mennick trailed them.

“I want to shed some blood in this, Lorgan,” Vors said, thumping a gauntleted fist on his breastplate. Paalin growled agreement.

Lorgan shook his head. “You both are to stay near me. You will see to any wounded and make sure no one is left behind, alive or dead.” Lorgan knew that a prisoner or corpse could be questioned and reveal the identity of the attackers. Forrin had been clear about not allowing that to happen.

The priests barked their usual complaints but agreed to do as Lorgan ordered.

Ahead, the trailing riders of the Saerloonian delegation turned and saw Lorgan’s forces bearing down on them. Two sped forward and shouted to the rest of the train. A score of heads turned around, alarmed. Men pointed, shouted. Shields were readied, weapons drawn. Heads poked out of the carriages and looked back. Lorgan grinned, imagining the Saerloonian nobles’ shock over an attack on their own road.

Gavist sounded a horn blast. The clear notes rang out over the thunder of hooves.

One of the Saerloonian riders sounded a trumpet in answer. Lorgan could see one or two of the riders issuing orders on the fly. The Saerloonian delegation spurred their horses into a hard gallop but the whole train could move only as quickly as the horses could pull the bouncing carriages. The Blades rapidly closed the gap. One rider in the Saerloonian delegation turned in his saddle and pointed something back at the Blades. Lorgan guessed he had spotted a wizard.

“Wand!” shouted several of the Blades.

A jagged bolt of lightning shot from the wand and tore through Boris men. Three horses and their riders fell, screaming, smoking.

“See to those fallen men!” shouted Lorgan to Paalin, who sped off to assist the wounded. Mennick started to cast a spell to counter the wizard, but Lorgan waved him off.

“Wait,” he said to the wizard, and shouted to Reht and his archers. “Archers on the wizard! Archers on the wizard!”

Shooting at a moving target by mounted archers was difficult, but Lorgan knew Reht’s men to be very good. Reht s squad pulled their bows and drew the strings to their ears.

“Fire!” Reht said, and eleven arrows buzzed into the sky. Most fell harmlessly to the road but two hit the wizard’s mount and it fell onto the road. The Saerloonians did not stop for their downed man.

“Run him down,” Lorgan shouted.

Two of Enken’s men steered their mounts over the fallen Saerloonian wizard, smashing his skull before he could rise. The Blades drew closer to the Saerloonians. The Saerloonians tried to form up as best they could on the run.

Heads appeared out of the carriages once more. Lorgan could make out their wide-eyed expressions. One shouted something to a nearby rider and ducked back inside. The left door of the rearmost carriage opened and a man stood on the foot rail, facing backward. His blue robes swirled around a breastplate enameled with a symbol of a spoked wheel—a Gondsman. His hand gestures told Lorgan he was casting a spell.