The Dragons of Argonath (41 page)

"I need to be informed of all such modifications of the house and surroundings."

"Well, now you have been, so take note. Now, come."

There was nothing to do but obey while wondering how in the world Lapsor had managed to dig this thing. It represented the labor of hundreds of men, day and night for weeks.

Glowing coals, emitting a reddish light, were affixed to the wall every twenty yards. They never seemed to burn out. Wexenne wondered what magic had been used to create them. His respect for the abilities of his strange visitor was growing rapidly.

Lapsor turned to him.

"By the way, I notice that Salva Gann is not with us. Where is he?"

Miles away, thought Wexenne.

"Oh, Salva? Well, it seems he had urgent business at home. He made a hurried departure just hours ago."

"Mmmm."

Lapsor did not speak again as they strode on for another hundred yards beneath the ground until they reached a portal, guarded by another half dozen former legionaries with blank eyes.

Past the guards they entered the realm of rooms that lay beneath the great house. The rooms had grown in number, Wexenne was certain of it. Lapsor was hollowing out the ground under his house; he was driving huge tunnels out beneath the back lawn; he had converted the legion captives they'd given him into a private guard force. Wexenne's misgivings about this venture were growing rapidly into the beginnings of panic. What could he do to change any of this? To halt Lapsor by physical means seemed beyond his capability. There were these guards, and there were the bewks, which were almost as terrifying as battledragons or trolls. Wexenne didn't have anything like enough men to stop this sorcerer he had unwittingly allowed to run loose.

A humiliating thought ran through his head. Would he be forced to flee ignominiously from his own house, in the steps of Salva Gann? He recalled Salva's words.

"Get out now, Wexenne, before it takes you like it took Porteous."

When Salva said this, Faltus Wexenne had waxed indignant. Now he knew he had been denying what was already plain before him. He had caught an angry dragon by the tail.

They passed through a set of heavy doors and entered a chamber at least one hundred feet long and fifty wide. Four tables occupied the room. On the tables were set glass-fronted cabinets. In the cabinets were dark, contorted shapes. Wexenne averted his eyes, not wanting to see more horrors from the sorcerer's experimentation.

In one corner they passed some odd little folk, dog-men it seemed they were, for they had the faces of animals and wore leather aprons across furred stomachs. The effect was marred by their enormous turtlelike eyes. They were engaged in removing some matted material from within a cabinet, and placing it in a box. Wexenne had never seen them before. He certainly hadn't been notified that they were to be imported into the cellars beneath his home. They went back to their work even before he'd passed. He blinked angrily for a moment.

"What are they?" he demanded.

Lapsor halted, glanced back.

"They are Neild."

"Where did they come from?"

"Another world, far away. Do not concern yourself with Neild. They are very useful creatures; that is all you need to know. Come."

They passed through another large chamber filled with tables and cabinets. More Neild were working in here, where most of the cabinets were empty. One by the door was not, unfortunately, and Wexenne caught a glimpse of a terrified young woman with terrible lesions across her face and neck. Her eyes were filled with fear, and she was chained to the back wall of the cabinet. He moved on. There was nothing he could do. Nothing he could do for any of these poor folk, most of whom he assumed were from the surrounding lands. Such a terror he had brought them, he, Wexenne, the fool, the idiot, the emasculated oaf.

He who was supposed to guard them and keep them from harm had instead delivered them into the hands of this human spider or whatever it was.

"Free Aubinas!" they cried, but Wexenne was wondering if instead they would all wind up as Lapsor's slaves.

They entered another room, this one smaller than the others. Three seven-foot-tall, manlike creatures were chained to the walls. Their eyes were bright, a sign of intelligence, he thought, but their massive build and the tusks projecting from their lower jaws were clearly inhuman. As he looked more closely, he saw that they had the faces of bewks, that same rough, piglike countenance. They seemed perfectly peaceable, yet they were chained closely to the wall.

"What are these things?" said Wexenne in a shaky voice. The sorcerer was producing new creatures at an alarming rate.

"These are my bewkmen. Magnificent aren't they?"

"How?" was all Wexenne could splutter.

"There is usually a way if we look hard enough for it. Of course, it took considerable experimental work. We tried at first with some females of your kind. They proved insufficiently vigorous, and the issue failed to come to term."

Wexenne blanched.

"Since then it has been tried with pigs, deer, and horses. It worked well on horses. These three for instance were produced in a matter of hours from the horses in your stable."

Wexenne stared in horror.

"My horses?" Prize mounts, his beautiful stallion, Runner!

"At least half survived the first birth. They have been reimpregnated of course. The yield is much better than with any other animal tested so far."

"But I only had a few mares."

"Oh, that doesn't matter. We do not require the full reproductive apparatus to generate the bewkseed."

"All the horses?" Wexenne was shaking with horror. "But surely cattle would have sufficed?"

"Yes, cattle will do, though the bewkmen from cattle were not as quick and lively as the ones from your horses."

My horses. Oh, by the Hand. Wexenne wanted to vomit. Those beautiful animals had been his pride and joy.

"I must protest. I think you should at least have asked me before doing this to my horses. Those are prize animals."

Lapsor grew cold. Frost coated his words.

"Of course, of course, there are always those who carp and complain. Don't you see that it had to be done at once. We need to generate some infantry capable of holding their ground in battle. Otherwise our bid to free Aubinas will die here in the mud."

Wexenne shuddered, how neatly he had been taken. Like a trout to the fly! Lapsor already spoke to him as if he were little more than a servant. And with these monsters Lapsor would soon assume control of the Aubinan army, and then?

Lapsor seemed to be reading his mind.

"I see you are just awaking to your true position. It will be hard for a while, but you must understand that you will fail without me."

Wexenne gasped for air. Lapsor leaned close.

"The point is, my friend, that we need to gather a lot of horses and some cattle, and then we need to gather food for them. We could have several thousand bewkmen within a few days."

Wexenne brought himself under control somehow.

"Why do you keep them chained up?" he said with as much determination as he could muster.

"Oh, we must test them, of course. We are determining how much food they need for different levels of effort. All have undergone intelligence tests and reaction times have been noted."

"And the results?"

"They are less intelligent than men, of course. But they are twice as strong and almost equally agile. They are not so good at distance running. In fact, endurance is their weak point. We have begun to test them with weapons. They are a little slow, but they are very strong, and I think they will be able to break the legion lines."

Wexenne stared at the brutes. If they could produce a few thousand of these and put them in with the rest of the Aubinan army, they could well destroy the legion force advancing on Posila.

But, if they won, would it be the victory of Aubinas or this dark mage-lord who had sprung himself on them?

"Great Lord Lapsor," said one of the others, Dirfling of Nellin. "May I ask why you have those people confined in the cabinets?"

"Ah, the cabinets." Lapsor sounded weary and sorrowful, as if bringing them bad news of a personal nature. "It is sad to look at, I know. Believe me, it is hard work to do, because of the sensitivities of your kind. I commend it, I do. Such qualities lift you out of the ruck of the lower orders of life. But we have to research the susceptibilities of men in case we must act against the general populations."

"Act against the people?" Wexenne was puzzled. Dirfling of Nellin was not.

"You mean you will loose plagues?"

"For the swift removal of large populations of your kind, such things can be necessary."

"We only seek to establish Aubinas as a free nation," said Dirfling.

"Of course, dear Master Dirfling, but we face a most determined foe. To capture the city of Marneri may be beyond our strength. In that case, after giving them a chance to surrender first, of course, we would begin a campaign to launch a pestilence among them."

Wexenne heard this with a shiver. What had he hatched here in the darkness beneath Deer Lodge?

Lessis tracked Lagdalen into the west. Actually Wespern did the tracking, riding ahead with Mirk while his fantastic sensitivities were kept focused on the faintest of trails. Lessis stayed back with their string of horses. They each had three mounts, with supplies of enriched oats, all to allow them to move around the clock at a good pace. Rain, hail, gusty winds, all were ignored as they rode on with a ground-devouring trot.

They changed horses again at the one-hundred-mile marker. While the horses ate small amounts of the oats and malt mixture, since too much would give them indigestion, the witch and her companions ate salted cod and pickles, washed down with water from the roadside fountain.

Remounted, they went on. Lessis now rode Felicity, an ordinary-looking little black mare, who turned out to be an exceptional horse to ride. She was strong, lithe like the best fillies, and blessed with an endurance far beyond that of most horses. She gave the impression that she would run with you to the ends of the world. Best of all, Felicity was both good-hearted and quite intelligent in her horsey way.

The pair of big roan geldings that were her other mounts were strong and able, but not very bright and not nearly as much fun to ride. Indeed, she recalled clearly that when Banker Wiliger had given her Felicity, he had mentioned that she was a champion ride.

It was cold enough that she was very grateful for the cut-down Kenor freecoat she was wearing under her waxed rain poncho.

The two big roans were running side by side in the string. They were wet and steaming, but seemed to be moving well, no sign of tiredness.

By the Breath she wished this rain would stop. Since she'd arrived in Marneri, it had rained almost continually. She had begun to suspect that it was the work of great sorcery. The magic of the First Aeon was beyond that of all subsequent times. That was when Gelderen glittered on its hill and the lamps of Salula shone across the world.

During the day they had seen thunderclouds moving south and west, and at times the dull boom of distant thunder was more or less continuous. All the wheat along this stretch of the road had been left too long and was now soaked and beaten down in places. The harvest would be poor this season.

The wind picked up and hurled the cold rain into their faces. Lessis hunched over, letting her hat brim take the worst of it. Felicity shook her head determinedly and plowed along, hooves splashing in the puddles. Lessis thought for a moment of the delights of spending such a horrible day working indoors, in a warm room with a fire going and some books of spellsay and artful rumor. She might be working on any of a dozen projects that she had dreamed of doing for years. And there would be hot tea whenever she wanted it, and time for meditation. Ah, the delights of such a life. Alas, it did not seem to be for her. Retirement now was just a memory.

Near Posila they paused. Wespern detected a break in the trail. The psychic echoes of Lagdalen and Eilsa that he was tracing were gone. They had to backtrack a half mile and then work forward again slowly until Wespern picked up a faint thread of the essence he followed.

They turned off the paved highway onto a muddy path that wound southward into the plain of Posila. It was evident that the abductors knew that the western approaches to Posila would bring them into contact with Commander Urmin's force. They were going southwest, heading for Lake Torenz. After that they'd be in Nellin, where they could be sure to get fresh horses. Then their pace would pick up, and it would be even harder to catch them before they got into the very heart of rebel Nellin.

Wespern drew up to a gate leading into a field that stretched off south. Farther fields were dimly visible beyond, hedged by darker masses of woodlots.

"They left the road here, and they went across these fields."

Lessis simply nodded. She was sure he was right. Wespern was uncanny, his sensitivities beyond the simply human. Mirk dismounted and opened the gate. When he was back on his horse, Lessis briefly exchanged a look with him. Such a drab, ordinary-looking man, if it wasn't for those eyes, you would never imagine what his career was made of.

She knew that Mirk was wondering where this pursuit would take them. He had heard the legends of Lessis, the death crow, who had taken regiments to their deaths out in the steppes of the Hazog. She knew he was probably wondering if he was about to join those lost souls. She also knew that Mirk could be trusted to the bitter end.

"Lead the way, Master Mirk," she said. They rode into the fields.

It was as she'd feared. The kidnap party had taken a loop south past Posila through Riverstrand, then through Bluebell Gap to Lake Torenz. They'd soon be in the river lands of the Running Deer, the very heart of the rebellion. In those rich little towns like Chavanne and Champery, where the landowners had grown wealthy on abundant harvests of grain, that was where the enemy would be.

He would also be well hidden, she imagined. He would have taken precautions against discovery. But she was certain that He himself was present in Aubinas, ever since that great light had shone down on them at the ambush and the bewks had appeared in the battle in the village of Quosh. He was physically here among them, working to destroy the Empire of the Rose. He had missed on his first blow, his sudden strike at the emperor. Now he bolstered the Aubinan revolt and aimed a blow directly at her, the Queen of Birds.