Wings of Flame (19 page)

In days to follow, Auron learned to guide the horse by the movements of his body to some extent, and by a tug at the long lead rope still attached to its headstall. He never learned to control the animal very well. Most of the time it simply trailed after the other mounts. But it was all new to Auron and both exciting and unsettling to him, even this small experience of his own powers of the body, he the sacred king who had never had much parley with his body, his self. In the discovery of this new facility, he hardly noticed how his other powers were gently fading away from him, how he seldom slipped into a visionary trance any more, how he scarcely noticed Kyrillos's thoughts even when the Devan king stood at his shoulder. There was small occasion for the use of such powers those days, among those he trusted, and even in his court days he had always employed them with discretion.

They traversed the thorny foothills and gradually entered on the steeper land of the true mountains. It was autumn at this height, the blackthorn leaves rustling and turning the color of copper. Auron knew that Kyrem had come hither from Avedon, but farther he had not been able to follow him with his farseeing sense.

“Can you scent the spoor of the lad now that we are closer, friend Auron?” Kyrillos asked him.

Already Auron's face and clothing had taken on a weathered look, and he straightened on his mount and glanced around him with a new keenness. Then he closed his eyes, still seeking just as keenly. All the men waited expectantly, and even the horses stood quite still. But when Auron opened his eyes at last, he shook his head, and his face looked haggard.

“One presence on this mountain masks all others,” he said, “and it is not Kyrem's. It is both powerful and malevolent.”

“Could Kyrem yet be here then, even though you cannot find him?” asked Kyrillos.

“He could yet be here.”

As long as there were villages or even scattered homesteads on the mountain slopes, it was not difficult to trace Kyrem's path. A horseman was no common sight in Vashti, and even weeks after his passing, folk still talked of him. He had gone straight up into the thickest of the black-trunked forest. There no one dwelt, or at least so it was thought. Though these folk lived peacefully enough, there was a certain cautious unease on their thoughts, and few men ventured to take the way that Kyrem had gone.

“Why not?” Kyrillos wondered aloud as they rode. He was a shrewd man, never one to hold back where something might be gained, if only knowledge. Nor would he shrink from challenge; his was a bold spirit. “Is this the Vashtin way, to sit tight always?”

“Perhaps.” Auron gave him a tilted smile. “You have seen how long I sat tight. But it is more than that, I think. Those folk know surely enough what I have also sensed, though they will not say it.”

“But what sort of sorcery is it that we will face here?”

“Hsst,” Auron told him, softening his tone. “Enemies ahead.”

Kyrillos gave his men the signals for caution and silence and the unsheathing of weapons. Quite softly they drifted forward, for the rustling leaves had not yet begun to fall, and the horses moved quietly on the thick bed of duff and dropped thorns beneath the trees.

Archers. They did not see them all at once. Bows and plentiful arrows at the ready, the brigands sat eating a midday meal from their satchels, each with his back against the black trunk of a tree. One outlaw they saw, and then two more, and then more again, a dozen or thereabouts, and there might have been more yet. Then one of them saw Kyrillos. He did not shout in alarm, but grinned and gave a sort of happy hunting call and fitted arrow to his bowstring. Kyrillos pulled his horse back sharply as the shaft thudded into the tree beside him.

“Retreat,” he ordered.

They galloped off. Arrows flew after them from rearward, and they could see that even in the short time since they had been sighted, they had very nearly been taken on three sides. Auron looked frozen with fear.

“Stop,” he said. “There are more ahead.”

“Are you sure?” Kyrillos demanded, pulling his charger to a plunging halt.

“Reasonably sure,” Auron said tersely. “I can sense them only at quite short range.”

“Which way should we go then?”

Auron pointed downhill.

“Of course,” said Kyrillos dourly. But he went, and the others followed.

They rode around the base of Mount Kimiel and tried it the next day from another approach. Kyrillos sent two scouts ahead this time.

“You cannot spare the men,” Auron said, worried. “You are likely to lose them.”

Kyrillos glanced back in some annoyance. “They are canny men. They will not be taken unaware.”

“Yes, but how can they hide themselves? Perhaps on foot—”

“Horses roam these parts, you say?” Kyrillos interrupted, his tone one of utter serenity.

“Young horses, yes.”

“Well, there. We are simply horses, nothing more, from a distance. We are not likely to be trailed, at least not if we leave few human traces. And our mounts given us the advantage of speed.”

“Enemies,” said Auron tensely, and in a moment the two scouts came hastening back to warn their master.

They had not been seen this time. Breathlessly they felt their way around the hidden presence of the foe. But as the terrain steepened, Kimiel put up natural ramparts to stop them, stony barriers the horses could not manage, certainly not with riders on their backs. Then a shout sounded from above.

“Retreat,” said Kyrillos morosely as arrows rattled down through the blackthorn branches and clattered against the rocks.

They retreated. “Yon archers' shafts give them some small advantage as well,” Auron said dryly.

Kyrillos did not answer. He looked furious.

“Try again,” Auron sighed.

And again and again over the course of the next week and more they tried to make their way up Kimiel, to no avail. After ten days or so of edging up the baffling slopes, scouting every step of the way and sleeping by turns at night, everyone in the party was worn down with striving. The autumn weather had turned damp and chill, and the coppery leaves were coming down, thinning the cover, sending up a loud crackling noise at their every move, so that they felt sure their enemies would at any time be upon them. Time and time again they had sighted brigands and eluded them, until it seemed to them that the whole mountaintop must be swarming with hundreds of foes. But still they did not know the name of their true enemy. And they had not found a sign of either Seda or Kyrem, nor did Auron sense any presence of the missing ones. In fact, Auron was sensing less and less.

“I wish I had been not so proud and had brought a few more men,” Kyrillos grumbled. “I wish I had brought a hundred. We would sweep right up this inhospitable hump and—”

He slid into curses. Kyrillos was feeling the effects of strain.

“This is holy land,” said Auron reproachfully.

“So much the worse, then, that these ruffians are at large upon it. What makes them so bold, I wonder.”

“I think the intelligence that governs them senses our presence and places them in our way. So there are not as many as there seem to be.” Auron shook his head, his weariness manifest in the down-tugged lines of his face. “Do not count on me for much aid any longer, Kyrillos.”

“What do you mean?” the Devan king demanded.

“Quiet,” snapped Auron. “What's that sound?” He was the most nervous one of the group—the effect, Kyrillos conjectured, of soft flesh and the contemplative life.

“Only wind in the trees,” Kyrillos said. But it was not wind, and after a while they traced it.

“By Suth,” Kyrillos exclaimed, “it is a force.”

The waterfall appeared over a high reach of rock and wavered down to the depths of a gorge two hundred feet below. At its lower extremity winked a pool like an emerald eye, frothy white at first but then quiet, shadowed, intensely green and deep. Almond shaped, it trickled away into stream. Towering ilex cast a chill purple shade, and laurel bushes crowded the edge of drop, pool and gorge, drinking in the spray.

“By Suth,” Kyrillos added, “there's even a trail.”

It zigzagged down over rock and earth, ferns and fallen logs, to the water. Deer could have made it, or the roaming horses. Auron looked at it dubiously, but the steeds snorted at the scent of water, the men fingered their nearly empty flasks.

“Dismount,” Kyrillos ordered. He did so himself and started to lead his horse down the trail. The others followed, edging down the steep bank that soon rose far above their heads.

“No!” a voice shouted from somewhere on the opposite bank. “No, it's a trap! Go back!”

“Kyrem!” Auron exclaimed, straightening and looking eagerly toward the sound.

“Get behind your horses!” Kyrillos roared at the same moment, and he shoved Auron behind his white-headed steed. More shouts sounded along with his, and groups of armed men sprang up along the bottom of the gorge as though sown by dragons' teeth. They appeared from behind rocks and bushes and yellowish laurel clumps, from grottoes, even from behind the waterfall itself. A shower of arrows flew up.

“Get your head down, Auron, would you?” Kyrillos snapped peevishly. “Was that really Kyrem?” he added in a different tone.

“I think so. Who else would it be? Oh, no.…”

The arrows lost most of their force in their steep upward flight. Stalling in midair as they did, they could almost be swept aside with a sword or an outreaching arm. No one had yet suffered more than a minor wound, though the horses were whinnying wildly and only Devan magic kept them in place. But Auron did not possess such magic. A sharp-honed arrowhead grazed his horse's shoulder, and the sacred stallion plunged in panic, screamed and plummeted into the gorge. The fall broke its neck. Dying, it lay half in the water, staring horribly, and the brigands stood frozen, gaping at the white-headed, Suth-like thing as if it were an omen of illest portent. Kyrillos pulled Auron to his side, behind his own steed.

“Now that is enough of this,” he declared, suddenly straightening. “One of us is worth three of them. Take them, men!”

All drew swords.

“Auron, stay here with the steeds,” Kyrillos ordered.

“Do you want to shame me?” Auron flared in uncharacteristic anger.

“Of course not. But you have no talent for this sort of thing, and you know it. Stay.”

“I can at least be another body in the line. And I have no reason to hold back. I am coming.”

“He can take position by me,” said a quiet voice, and Kyrem came over the top of the gorge and swung himself down to stand beside them.

Chapter Sixteen

“Kyrem. By the most holy one, lad, they told me you were dead,” Kyrillos breathed, and tears started suddenly down his face. The prince stared openmouthed at his father. Tears trickling into the big man's beard.… Kyrillos reached over to touch his son, and Kyrem moved a hesitant hand in answer. But no sooner had hands met and gripped than a shout jerked them back to the pressing reality.

The brigands had closed ranks. They had mostly spent their arrows, but they still had cudgels, spears, long knives. No longer scattered at the bottom of the gorge, they advanced on the steep slope with weapons raised, ready for the charge.

“Get back,” Kyrem said, tugging at Auron but speaking to his father. Kyrillos mounted his horse instead.

“The steed and I can hold them here a while,” he said. “Auron, move the men back up to the top there.”

“No room to turn the horses.” Auron stepped forward to stand at Kyrillos's fore. He looked very pale, but determined.

“Confound it,” Kyrillos roared, and then his attention was taken up by attackers at his feet. He beheaded one with a swish of his curved blade and kicked another back down into the gorge. Auron lunged, a clumsy attack, but the slope gave him advantage over the man he faced and the fellow toppled backward. Kyrem struck down the sword of a second attacker before it could touch him.

“Will you both,” the prince pleaded, “just get
back?
”

“What, and let you be killed after all? I've come too far for that, lad.” Kyrillos swished off another head, almost absently. “Get back yourself.”

“They're outflanking us,” Auron said.

“Line of battle!” Kyrillos thundered, and his retainers fought their way forward and took their places to either side.

It truly is very difficult for horses to go backward up a steep slope. Hard beset, the Devans tried to make their steeds accomplish this feat several times during the next hour, but they found retreat impossible. Their whole focus after the first few moments was to keep the enemy to the fore. If once the swarming brigands managed to surround them, they would be finished. The riders on horseback took great advantage from their height and their uphill position, but the attackers on foot were numerous and fanatically persistent. They had to be killed. As often as they were knocked tumbling down the steep bank into the gorge they righted themselves and came up again with weapons raised.

Kyrem and Auron kept to the center of the line, the prince nearly frantic lest the gentle Vashtin king should be hurt. But Auron had captured a lance, hanging onto the shaft of it with grim tenacity while Kyrem killed the proper owner, and he quickly learned to use it to keep enemies at a distance. He would prod them back down the slope. Those few who came closer, Kyrem dispatched. Between the two of them, they managed almost better than the mounted men.

“It's a good thing we're fighting Vashtins,” Kyrillos panted, for the outlaws were making no attempt to kill or injure the horses, only the riders. Auron glanced up dazedly from his bloody work and stared at the Devan king.

“By Suth, so we are!” he murmured, shaking his head as though to clear the haze of battle fever from it. “These scum are Vashtins, after all. King and people—”

Kyrem caught the drift of his mumblings. “Auron,” he warned, but he had scarcely spoken when Auron moved.