The Jackal of Nar (98 page)

“Kronin!” he shouted over the din of hammering hooves. With the blade of his weapon he gestured toward the trio of wagons. Kronin glimpsed the man and frowned.

“Faster!” ordered the warlord. “Faster now!”

And they went faster, Lucyler and Kronin, speeding toward the center wagon as Hakan and the others broke rank and dashed
toward the flanking vehicles. Behind them, still hidden in the trees, a score of archers awaited the outcome of their mission. Lucyler let his hand drop to the deerskin sack bouncing against his horse’s side. Hakan and his men were similarly burdened. Even Kronin’s horse was slowed by a bulging bag. And if they should split …

No,
Lucyler corrected himself. The skins were strong enough. Their plan would work if they were quick.

They were on the plain now, the war wagons clearly in sight. Talistanian steel scraped out of scabbards. And then, as if a great, dark sun had risen in the center of the camp, Lucyler saw the maniacal figure of Blackwood Gayle atop his ebony horse, one gauntleted fist throttling the hilt of his sword. A long tail of braided hair trestled off his head, and a shining mask of silver glinted on his face, so that only one scarlet eye blinked with life. He was surrounded by mounted horsemen, defiantly calling out to the men of Tatterak even as they washed toward him.

The horsemen were organizing. It would be a battle then. But Lucyler was sure they would win. The Talistanians were outnumbered, and their protective fence of legionnaires was a mile away, still fighting in the forest with the rest of Voris’ zealots. Without the infantry of Nar to bolster them, the horsemen were too few to stand against the indigo wave crashing toward them. They would
have
to retreat.

The wagon was only yards away now. The man with the hat seemed perplexed. He drew his saber and started off toward the wagons, calling after another man behind him. Lucyler grinned. They would never make it.

“Come!” urged the warlord as he prepared to leap from his saddle. Hakan and the other teams were close behind, while behind them hurried the wild fighting men of Tatterak. A greegan sleeping near its wagon opened a bleary eye at the commotion. Suddenly another of the beasts awoke, the one chained to the center wagon. It saw the oncoming army and howled in alarm, lumbering clumsily to its feet.

But Kronin was too close now. The warlord brought his horse to a skidding halt beside the monster and swung the blade of his jiiktar against the greegan’s throat. The blow glanced off. Kronin screamed in rage, then stabbed at the beast with all his might,
forcing the point of his blade through the thick skin. Amazingly, the blade snapped. There was a gush of dark blood and the creature bellowed, thrusting up its horn. Its front legs buckled and its huge head thrashed, and Kronin climbed off his mount, narrowly escaping the sweeping horn as he snatched the sack of oil from his horse. The horse whinnied and drew back, and as it reared the greegan’s horn plunged into its belly.

Kronin staggered back, horrified. A fountain of blood splashed against his face. Lucyler reached him and brought his own horse to a halt. The warlord’s mount gave an anguished cry as the greegan withdrew its horn, pulling with it a knotted mass of entrails. The horse fell twitching to the ground. The greegan whirled, blinded by the blood. Lucyler heard men shouting. He grabbed hold of Kronin’s arm and pulled, directing him onto the roof of the war wagon, which pitched as the beast that pulled it thrashed.

“Go!” Lucyler called. Kronin lost his footing, slipped, then quickly righted himself, still balancing the skin full of flammable liquid. When he reached the roof he tore open the drawstring with his teeth and inverted the sack, pouring out the viscous contents and soaking the wagon.

“Now yours!” cried the warlord, reaching out for Lucyler’s oil skin. He did the same as before, dousing the vehicle with its contents, careful to make sure the wooden parts of the wagon were well coated. The pitching of the greegan only helped slosh the oil about, and when he had nearly emptied the second sack he took the last of its contents and tossed them onto the animal itself. As the warlord worked, Lucyler hazarded a look behind them. There in the hills he could see the archers, peeking out from their verdant hiding spots with their bows held ready. A glowing brazier of coals sent up a reed of thin smoke.

“No more,” Lucyler shouted. “The soldiers are coming. We have to go.”

Kronin jumped from the top of the wagon as Lucyler hurried to his horse and tossed himself onto the beast’s back. The man with the hat was coming toward them, waving his saber and cursing. The other man with him seemed in a daze. He had clamped a helmet over his face and followed the hatted man haphazardly, a good ten paces behind. Lucyler smiled to himself. They would never reach the wagon in time. He extended out a hand and
helped the warlord climb onto the horse. Kronin had dropped his broken jiiktar and was staring in disgust as the wounded greegan trampled it into the bloodied dirt, splintering it.

“The others are done,” said Lucyler, watching Hakan and his fellows race away from the camp. Lucyler jerked the reins and spun his horse toward the hill. All they needed now was a signal.

As they began their escape, Kronin cupped his hands around his mouth and let out an ear-splitting shriek. Up in the hills the archers dipped their arrow tips into the burning brazier. Lucyler let out a giddy laugh. They would get Kronin another mount, then they would join the others on the battlefield. They would find Blackwood Gayle and they would gut him. He laughed louder, and saw the archers tip their flaming arrows skyward.

And then he saw something else, another bright object twinkling in the corner of his eye. He turned his head. It was a young man, hardly more than a boy, garbed in the uniform of a Talistanian horseman. But he wasn’t on a horse. He had fallen to one knee and was staring at them, a huge, metallic nozzle balanced precariously on his shoulder. The nozzle smoked and sparked, as if ready to explode. Beside the man was a cannister with a spiderweb of lines running to the metal nozzle.

Lucyler cursed. Up in the hills the archers drew back on their bowstrings. The man with the flame cannon trembled as he heard the thunder of approaching warriors. He pulled the trigger.

There was a roaring blast. The world turned orange.

Trosk watched the arrows climbing skyward. The buzz in his brain had settled to a low hum, but he still didn’t know what the hell was happening. Gayle was behind him, shouting incomprehensibly, and the idiot Lotts was bumbling after him, talking to himself. The colonel followed the arrows through the sky, unsure what to do. He was near the war wagon and knew the giant vehicles were the targets of the incoming arrows. The Triin scum had covered the wagons with something, no doubt explosive.

“Lotts!” he cried over his shoulder. “Hurry up, you fool. We have to get the wagons to safety.”

The big Aramoorian clamored forward, stopping yards
away from the wounded greegan. Trosk held up his hands to the animal.

“Easy, you big idiot. I just want you to move.”

If the creature heard him it did not obey. It merely wailed in pain, pulverizing the dead body of the horse as it thrashed about. Trosk stole a glance toward the sky. Mere moments remained.

“Move, damn you!” he shouted, then backed quickly away from the targeted animal. Dinadin arrived next to him just as the shower of flaming arrows came down. The wagon erupted in flame, its huge bellows expanding in an instant. The licking flames caught the rump of the greegan and ignited the oil smeared across its back. The greegan wailed and lunged forward. Trosk yelled and stumbled. Blackness filled his vision as the greegan rumbled forward, then collapsed, its two front legs crumbling beneath its gargantuan weight. Trosk twisted, trying to jump clear of the falling beast. His face and chest hit the ground and he clawed madly at the dirt, cursing. He saw a shadow dropping over him, saw Lotts’ horrified face, then more blackness and a pain so indescribable he thought his lungs would burst.

The greegan had fallen. It lay across his crushed legs, slobbering blood and dragging itself over him, grinding him into the ground and shattering his bones.

“Lotts!” he screamed. Blood filled his mouth, gushing up from his insides. “Lotts, help me!”

The Aramoorian didn’t move. He merely stood there, his face hidden behind the grotesque demon mask, and watched as Trosk reached out for him. Trosk felt an icy panic seize him. He couldn’t move.

“Lotts, you idiot, help me! My legs are caught. Help me, goddamn it!”

And still Lotts didn’t stir. Trosk twisted his neck and saw the wagon immersed in smoky fire. The greegan had stopped moving. But now the bellows of the acid launcher were moving, blowing up like an enormous balloon.

“Lotts, please!” Trosk cried. Hysterical tears were running down his face. The bellows made a weird, unhealthy screech. “Please!” he screamed again. “Lotts, I’ll give you anything! Anything!”

The Aramoorian took a small step forward. Trosk’s heart leapt with hope.

“Do you remember the girl?” came the inhuman voice beneath the helmet. “There’s only one thing I want, Colonel. And I’m getting it right now.”

Then, without another word, Lotts turned and walked away. Trosk twisted again and saw the groaning bellows through the flames, stretched to an impossible size. A trickle of yellow steam rose from a pinprick in its surface. The hole widened with a shudder, vomiting up a cloud of corrosive vapor.

It was the last thing Trosk saw before his eyeballs burst.

The first thing Lucyler saw when he opened his eyes was the sky. There was an insistent pounding in his temples, and the sky was bright, burning his skin with its heat. His face hurt. His arms hurt, too. Men were calling after him. He heard his name as if from a great distance. And he heard Kronin’s name.

Kronin. Where was he?

Lucyler struggled onto his side. There was a figure in the grass next to him, its limbs unnaturally twisted. Lucyler put his hand to his face, remembering the concussive blast that had knocked him from his horse. His face ached. The sleeve of his blue jacket hung from his left side in tatters, and the white skin beneath had been singed a ruddy red. The pain was unspeakable. Lucyler crawled to where the figure lay, dragging himself with his good arm. He pushed away the tall grass and saw Kronin sprawled facedown in the dirt. The warlord’s hair was almost gone, burned away from his scalp. There was a giant tear along his back, a rent that had ripped through his clothing and devoured his flesh so that the bony facets of his spine protruded. Kronin wasn’t moving, not even to draw the slightest breath.

“Oh, no, no,” Lucyler moaned, slumped over the warlord’s corpse. Hakan and another warrior rode up. There was a long, grief-stricken silence before the herald spoke.

“Kronin is killed!” he said incredulously. “He is killed.…”

Around them horses thundered past as the men of Tatterak rode toward their enemies, but Lucyler didn’t lift his head. He stayed draped over the dead warlord, feeling the warmness of Kronin’s bloodied back on his chest and letting the steaming fluid drench his clothes. He was sobbing, and he didn’t know why. Was Kronin so great a friend? Barely able to straighten,
Lucyler lifted himself off the inert body. Hakan was staring at him sorrowfully.

“We will avenge him,” seethed Lucyler. “We will fight these men and we will push them into the swamps. And we will drown them there.”

“Come off me, you little bastard,” spat Richius as he worked the tip of his dagger under the mouth of the leech. It was the last one, or so he hoped. Somehow he had missed it. The swamps, Voris had neglected to tell him, were full of the slimy parasites, and he had spent the last few hours impatiently working them off his flesh with his blade. Except for this one. This one had eluded him, climbing up his pants leg and onto his back. He hadn’t felt it until a moment ago.

They had crossed the thickest parts of the swamps, waist deep in muck until they each found a perch to support their weight. And when they had climbed up into their hideouts the sickening work of removing the parasites had begun. It was a filthy, exacting surgery, one that Richius hurried through as best he could, and the numerous cuts on his legs betrayed his sloppiness. But he had gotten almost all of them.

He bit his lip as he twisted his body, balancing carefully on the branch with one arm as he put the other behind his back and worked with one hand to dislodge the parasite. He felt the length of its slimy body for its mouth, maneuvered the blade under it, and flicked it, digging out a piece of his own flesh in the process.

“Son of a …”

But the leech was off. He pinched it between his fingers and squeezed until it popped, then dropped it into the water below. Beside him he heard Voris laugh. The warlord, who was roosted in a nearby tree, had been watching his antics with amusement. Richius sheathed his dagger and smiled ruefully at Voris.

“Thanks for telling me about the leeches,” he mumbled as he buttoned up his shirt. Jessicane hung from another branch an arm’s length away, dangling safely within reach in its soiled scabbard. It was almost dusk. A weird calm had settled over the moors. Richius could scarcely hear the faint conversations of the Triin hidden in the treetops around him. The heat of the day had broken, but the rotten smell of the swamps was a constant
plague. Yellow fumes floated over the waters, croaking up from bubbling pools, and the throaty songs of frogs droned endlessly through the trees. In the distance the distressed cry of a water-bird rang out as something pulled it beneath the waters. The air was thick, rank with humidity, and Richius’ drenched clothing hung from him like rags. His scalp and face itched from a thousand mosquito bites. He wanted to go home.

Wherever that was.

To Dyana. To Shani. Wherever they were, he wanted to be. Anywhere he could be a man again, instead of a tree-climbing predator. He wasn’t a jackal anymore. He had become a jaguar, waiting for its meal to pass beneath him so he could spring and break its neck. Were jaguars man-eaters, he wondered?

A sound echoed through the moors. A warrior splashed toward them. He was shouting, pointing behind him. Richius froze. There was no doubt what the signal meant. He glanced over toward Voris.