Wizardborn, p.45
Wizardborn, page 45
Wallachs eyed the second building as he passed. Averan could smell the pungent, greasy odor of lye soap cooking.
After that, there was no true road. No cottages bordered the Stinkwater, not even the lowest hovel. Here on the east of town, the only businesses had been those that smelled so bad that no one would want them near.
To the west of town the land had been rich and fertile, covered with cottages and gardens, orchards, vineyards, and fields of hops and barley.
But here even the ground seemed defiled. The land flattened out. During the winters, rain would swell the Stinkwater Ponds, flooding their banks. In summer the water receded, leaving a yellowish-gray crust where almost nothing could grow. Coarse grass thrust up from sandy patches along with a few black, stunted trees that were so twisted they might never have been alive.
Averan could smell the Stinkwater, a stench like rotten eggs.
The ponds, green with scum, boiled out of the ground not far ahead. A thin haze rose up from the steaming waters. A dozen wagons were there, with twenty or thirty men offloading barrels.
Wallachs drew near, shouted, “How do you fare?”
“We’ve got enough lye in there to eat the flesh off your bones,” one man shouted, “and with all the turpentine, I’d not get a flame close to it for any woman’s love!”
Averan looked at Binnesman’s face. He seemed unprepared for how large the ponds really were. They looked larger down here than they did from up in the sky. Each one covered several acres. Kegs of poison floated in them.
In the distance, the earth thundered as the reavers approached. Binnesman’s countenance was pale.
“By the Powers,” he whispered, “I can’t heal those waters—not in an hour, not in a day!”
Wallachs grunted and nodded, as if his suspicions had been confirmed. He shouted to his men. “You’ve got three minutes to clear the ponds. The reavers are coming!”
He snapped his whip over the ears of his team, and raced ahead.
“The road gives out just east of here,” Wallachs apologized to Binnesman in a worried tone. “Not more than a mile, and you’re in the woods.”
He left much unsaid. If the reavers came after them, there’d be no place to run.
“A mile should be far enough,” Binnesman said. “Take us to yonder rise, and let’s see what happens.”
Wallachs urged the horses on, and the buckboard bounced mercilessly over the bumpy trail, rattling Averan’s teeth. Behind them, a cloud of dust rose from where Feldonshire had stood, and the faint screams drifted over the plain.
Averan’s stomach knotted. The horses were tiring. They couldn’t keep up this pace for mile after mile. Even if the road had kept going, the horses couldn’t.
Now the wagon rolled up a small knoll where a few black trees thrust from the sparse grass. From there, Averan could see the hills above town and look out over the Stink-water.
She’d seen the ponds before from the sky. Up high, they looked like three bright green gems with white edges. But she knew that it was just a trick of the light.
Now the wagons pulled away from the ponds, with men whipping their horses. Broken barrels bobbed on the water, spilling scum. The steam rising from the ponds’ surface made them look like bubbling cauldrons.
Averan’s heart pounded. They had barely stopped, when the reavers crowned the hill above Feldonshire, stampeding for the Stinkwater.
The horde thundered across the plain, teeth gleaming wickedly in the sunlight. For hours they had been running in the Form of War.
Now they broke ranks. The largest and greediest blade-bearers surged ahead, making for the ponds.
But even half a mile from water, most reavers sensed something wrong. Many rose up on their back legs, philia waving madly, and drew back from the stench. Others merely slowed, stalked forward cautiously.
A few thousand reavers, so crazed that their senses were gone, galloped forward and threw themselves into the ponds, dipping their heads down deep in the water, then throwing them back up as they drank in a strangely birdlike fashion. They crowded together, cheek to jowl, a solid mass of gray leathery hides and flashing teeth.
It was a horror to watch.
Behind the reaver horde, Gaborn’s knights advanced over the hills.
With the breaking ranks and their loss of hope, many reavers floundered. They dropped and lay insensate, unwilling to move.
Knights on their force horses raced to take them while they were down. Their silver mail flashed as horses wheeled and turned, darting after the slowest gray reavers. Through half-closed eyes, the knights reminded Averan for all the world of silver minnows in a pool, flashing in the sunlight as they struck at a bit of food.
The knights brought down a few hundred reavers, then wheeled their chargers south to a small hill nearly a mile and a half away. They formed ranks there. Lances bristled as they aimed at the sky. Local farmers and merchant boys rode up to meet them, swelling their ranks to thousands.
Closer to hand, the reavers that had reached the Stinkwater and drunk the most began to die. Muscle spasms caused them to flip to their sides, kicking dust in the air as they spun.
Those that drank only a little drew away from the fouled water after a swallow or two, and simply heaved the contents of their stomachs onto the ground. They groped about, almost too weak to move.
By far the vast majority of the reavers merely retreated from the ponds and stood, dazed with dehydration. Their philia drooped in exhaustion, hanging from their heads like dead vines. The rasping of their heavy breathing filled the air, becoming a dull rumble.
Dozens of reavers began to trudge in aimless circles, no longer cognizant of where they went.
From the south, a hundred force horses came charging over the plains out of the wooded hills. Gaborn led them, riding with Knight’s Equitable, as if to race the wind. He’d circled the reaver horde. Now he rode up toward Averan on the hillock. Skalbairn rode with him, along with Baron Waggit and many other knights.
Gaborn nodded at Averan and leapt from his horse, gazing west at the reavers. “What’s happening?” he demanded. His countenance was grim, determined.
“Their run to water has left them broken,” Binnesman answered. “I suspect that over half of the horde has succumbed.”
“Not quite half,” Gaborn said. “I estimate nearly forty thousand reavers left in the horde.”
“They’re dying,” Averan added. “They won’t make it back to Keep Haberd.”
“I think,” Wallachs said hopefully, “I think we’ve done it. I think we’ve won!”
Averan watched Gaborn as he licked his lips and stared hard at the reavers. Eventually they would all die, and Gaborn would lead her to the Waymaker. There she would feed, and learn the path to the One True Master.
“We haven’t won,” Gaborn told Wallachs. “They may die, but not without a fight.”
Even as he spoke, a great hissing erupted among the center of the horde.
A mage rose up high on her legs, began casting her scent far and wide. The glowing runes on her body glimmered in the sun, and her staff suddenly blazed like white lightning.
Three Kills was her name. In Averan’s memory, she was young and fearsome, easily the most cunning mage in the horde. Only her relative youth and small size had kept her from leading the band before. Three more reavers rose up, faced Three Kills and began hissing in return.
“What’s happening?” Gaborn demanded.
“It’s an argument between lords,” Averan said. “They often argue.”
“Which one is their leader?” Gaborn asked.
Averan was astonished by the question. It was so obvious. “The one with her butt highest in the air. See how the others keep theirs lower? She’ll kill them if they don’t.”
Gaborn watched them so intently that Averan felt guilty for not being able to tell him more. He went to the lip of the hill, drew his warhammer and planted it in the ground, much as Binnesman did his staff. Then he held the handle, and peered at the reavers, as if trying to read their thoughts.
If I had the senses of a reaver, she knew, I’d be able to smell what they said. I’d know what they were arguing about.
But she only knew that an argument like this might last for an hour or more.
The sunlight seemed so bright, so painful. As the reavers held their council, Averan half closed her eyes.
Down in the valley below, Three Kills’s argument ended abruptly. A rival raised her tail slightly, and Three Kills leapt, thrust her crystalline staff through the sweet triangle of her adversary. There was a dull explosion, and the sorceress’s head ripped into ragged chunks.
She had had her say.
Now Three Kills snatched gobbets of her brain, while others in the horde ripped out the sweet glands below her legs.
The remaining reavers drew back, began rushing about, taking up new formations. They separated into nine camps, each led by a scarlet sorceress, each in the Form of War.
They turned and began stalking east, spreading to the north and south as they went. It was a distinctly odd maneuver for a reaver.
Reavers lived in tunnels, and tended to walk in single file through the Underworld—head to tail. That way, orders could be relayed backward easily.
Spreading their forces went against the reavers’ most fundamental instincts. More than that, the horde was heading downwind. They wouldn’t easily be able to smell adversaries in front of them.
“What are they doing?” Gaborn asked. “Is this what I think?”
Averan began shaking. She could see it all so clearly. The nine armies would create a front perhaps eight miles wide. Already Gaborn’s troops on the far hill recognized the danger and began to retreat. “You’re right. The reavers know they’re going to die,” she said. “But there are a lot of people in Feldonshire. They’ll hunt down as many peasants as they can. After that…”
“They’ll keep hunting,” Gaborn said. “I can sense ripples of danger everywhere. They’ll circle and head downriver, through city after city until they reach the Courts of Tide.
“Averan, how can I stop them?”
The reavers loped off to the east.
Averan thought quickly. Each time they’d killed a leader, the new mage had changed tactics. Even now, the other sorceresses questioned Three Kills’s wisdom. She’d led them to water, only to find it poisoned. The reavers were on the verge of mutiny.
“You must get rid of Three Kills …”
“Of course!” Gaborn said. But he’d lost sight of her. “Where is she?”
“The middle formation,” Averan answered.
His face paled. She knew that he was considering strategies, counting the potential cost. He looked grim, lost.
59
BROTHERHOOD
I have learned that my kingdom has no borders.
And that all men are more than mere subjects—they are my kinsmen, my brethren—and therefore deserving of my devotion.
I find that I grieve the loss of strangers as I would grieve the loss of my only child.
—Erden Geboren
Skalbairn sat on his charger as Gaborn studied the reavers. Skalbairn could see the wheels of the lad’s mind turning as he considered how to best the reavers. The reavers were stalking toward Feldonshire.
The boy had no time to plot any elegant strategies. The main force of his cavalry held the hill to the west. But if Gaborn raced to them now, he would have to skirt the reavers’ lines. By the time he reached his men, the reavers would be into Feldonshire, hunting.
“Gentlemen,” Gaborn said firmly. “I believe we can stop the slaughter before it begins—but only at great cost.”
Gaborn looked up at the hundred men who had ridden with him, staring each in the eye. “I’m for the Underworld, and cannot lead the charge. And any man who rides now must consider his life forfeit. Will you ride?”
The lad was serious. Skalbairn had never seen an expression like Gaborn wore now. There was suffering and pain in his eyes, and sorrow in his brow, and a consuming need.
Skalbairn’s blood went chill. As a child he’d dreamt of being a warrior, and in his fondest dreams he’d imagined that an Earth King would arise someday, and Skalbairn would fight at his side.
But he’d never dreamt of it like this. The Earth King never asked him to die.
There was a moment of silence from the lords. Skalbairn knew that his men would ride, but none wanted to be the first to speak.
“In the world to come,” Skalbairn inquired, “may I ride beside you in the Great Hunt?”
“Aye,” Gaborn said. “Any man who rides now will ride with me then.” It was an empty promise, Skalbairn knew. Not all men rose as wights.
Skalbairn spat on the ground. “’Tis a bargain, then!”
A cheer rose from the men at Skalbairn’s back. Some drew their warhammers and beat them against shields, others waved their lances.
The only man who did not cheer was Baron Waggit, who sat silently on his mount, thinking. It was a capacity new to him, Skalbairn reasoned, an unfamiliar tool.
Gaborn raised a hand, warning them to silence.
“We’ll need a diversion,” Gaborn said. He drew a hexagon on the ground. “You’ll break into three squadrons. We’ll send fifty men on a charge here to the left, another fifty to charge to the right. As the reavers’ move to attack, it should thin the line here at the front. A small force of men on fast horses can race through the lines and lance the mage.”
“Milord,” Skalbairn asked, “may I volunteer to strike the blow?”
The lad’s face was pale. He took a deep breath, nodded.
Skalbairn was sure then that he would die. Marshal Chondler said, “I’ll ride with him, as should any man of the Brotherhood of the Wolf.”
With that, a third man made the offer, Lord Kellish, and Gaborn nodded, and said, “That’s enough.”
Gaborn stared evenly at the hundred Knights Equitable who were going to ride into battle, said in a solemn tone, “Thank you. I’ll need each of you to fight like reavers now.”
Gaborn pulled out his warhorn and said, “The left wing charge on my command, two blasts quickly. The right wing will go on one blast long. Skalbairn, I’ll ride with you part of the way.”
Skalbairn and the knights quickly dismounted, checked their girth straps. Not every man had a lance, but every man wanted one. He quickly checked his charger’s hooves. The heavy war shoes were all in place. The leather bindings for its barding were tight.
For years, Skalbairn had lived as a moral failure. For years he had believed that only death might bring him some release.
He pulled off his purse, looked up at Baron Waggit. The young man sat on his horse, looking grim and thoughtful. He was big, handsome in a brutish sort of way, with a color of blond hair favored back in Internook. He wasn’t riding into battle, and that was good. He knew that this fight was beyond him. Maybe he’d never be a warrior. He’d make a fine farmer, or perhaps someday go back to the mines. With any luck, he’d live to a ripe old age. Right now, that was all that Skalbairn wanted from the man.
Damn it, Skalbairn thought. A day ago we all thought him a fool, and now he’s wiser than all the rest of us put together.
“Waggit,” Skalbairn called. The young man turned, his pale blue eyes piercing in the mid-morning sun. “Some gold. I’d be grateful if you’d take it to my daughter, Farion. See that she’s well cared for.”
Waggit considered the request.
Skalbairn felt certain that if Waggit saw the girl, he’d feel for her plight. Waggit knew better than any man the world his idiot daughter was trapped in. He’d recognize her virtues and her goodness. His daughter was as kind as she was simple, and her smile was as infectious as a plague. She’d never make another man a proper wife. She could do small chores—bring in firewood or pluck a chicken for dinner. All she needed was a good man, capable of loving her. He’d need to be a patient man to care for her, to buy goods at the market, and help her rear her children—one forgiving of her weaknesses.
Skalbairn whispered to the Powers, Let him be that man.
Waggit nodded. “I’ll give it to her.”
“May the Bright Ones protect you,” Skalbairn said softly.
Skalbairn climbed on his horse, spurred the mount down the slope, leading the way. There was no more time for niceties.
In moments, Gaborn and the others all gathered around him, and the assault began without fanfare, a hundred men against more than three thousand reavers.
The reavers were running fast, heading toward Feldonshire, loping over the plains with their backs to him, each reaver like a gray hill.
Skalbairn let his huge black charger race. He dropped his lance into a couch. Beside him, a hundred men fanned out. The sulfur and alkali crusting the plains muted the sound of the horse’s hooves, and went flying as they charged.
The plain was as flat and barren of stones as it could be. There were painfully few trees or bushes, hardly even any grass.
He’d never had a better surface for a cavalry charge.
Langley veered to the right, leading fifty men to the far side of the hexagon. Lord Gulliford guided another fifty left.
“Ranks three deep,” Gaborn said to Skalbairn, Marshal Chondler, and Lord Kellish. “Make sure that you cut through the lines!”
Gaborn sounded two blasts short. Gulliford’s riders gave their chargers their heads.
Gaborn sounded one blast long, and Langley’s men swept to the right, driving hard.
Gaborn held his three champions back. Baron Waggit rode beside them.
Skalbairn reined his mount, watched the enemy lines.
Gulliford’s men swept into the reavers, lanced dozens from behind, then veered away from the front, riding as if in a Knight’s Circus. The reavers spun to face them, blade-bearers closing ranks to form a wall of flesh while sorceresses leveled their staves and hurled dire spells. Clouds of green smoke rained down on the fifty. In the mountains the reavers had thrown stones, but the sandy soil here left their artillery with nothing at hand. Only half a dozen men fell under the onslaught.
