Stalking Darkness

by Lynn Flewelling

  “Are you so certain?” Mardus’ smile was tinged with pity. “Well, we’ll speak again when you’re less overwrought. Vargûl Ashnazai, would you be so kind as to assist Alec with some calming meditations?”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  Alec tried to flinch away, but the guards held him still as the other man pressed cold, dry fingers against his cheekbone and jaw. For an instant Alec was overwhelmed by a thick, rotten odor, then a terrible blackness engulfed him, plunging him back into a morass of illness and pain where he couldn’t escape the mocking echo of Seregil’s long-forgotten warning, Fall behind and I’ll leave you, leave you, leave you—

  Alec awoke in the dim confines of a tiny cabin. Still panting from the residual terror of the necromancer’s trance, he sat up in the narrow bunk and tried to make out his surroundings. There was no lantern, but the weak light filtering in through a grate in the cabin door was enough to illuminate the foot of another bunk against the opposite wall. Above the rush of water against the hull, he heard the distant, muffled sound of someone weeping loudly. The smell of rich broth wafted in from somewhere nearby, and he realized that he was hungry in spite of the lingering effects of the necromancer’s magic.

  Throwing off the thin blanket, he climbed out of the bunk, then froze. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the dim light, he could see that the other bunk was occupied. A figure lay stretched there under a blanket, face hidden in the shadows. Clearing his throat nervously, Alec reached out to touch the person’s shoulder.

  “Hello. Are you—”

  A hand shot from beneath the blanket, grasping his wrist in a ferocious, ice-cold grip. Alec lunged back, but the other man hung on, lurching up as Alec tried to pull free.

  “By the Light,” Alec gasped. “Thero!”

  The young wizard was as naked as Alec, and a set of branks had been fastened around his head. Iron bands encircling the lower part of his face held an iron gag piece in his mouth, while another passed tightly over the top of his head between his eyes to join the first in the back. An opening for his nose had been left in the vertical band and the whole thing was secured under his chin by a chain. When Thero tried to speak around the gag his voice was hardly intelligible. Saliva dripped from the corners of his mouth to collect in his sparse beard and Alec guessed from the look in his eyes that he was either insane or terrified.

  “Ah’ek?” Thero managed, still gripping his wrist with one hand as he brought the other up to touch Alec’s face. Wide iron bands inscribed with symbols encircled his wrists.

  “What are you doing here?” Alec whispered in disbelief.

  Thero gabbled thickly for a moment, his desperation clear. Then, releasing Alec, he beat his fists against his head until Alec had to restrain him.

  “No, Thero. Stop it. Stop!” Alec shook him roughly by the shoulders. Thero’s pale, bony chest heaved with emotion as he shook his head violently and tried to pull away.

  “You’ve got to calm down and talk to me,” Alec hissed, caught somewhere between anger and terror himself. “We’re in one hell of a mess and we’re going to need each other to get out of it. Now let me try and get this contraption off.”

  But the branks were locked securely in back and he had no tools to open it. He searched the cabin with the scant hope of finding something—a nail, perhaps, or a splinter of wood—to use as a makeshift pick. He found nothing except a bowl of broth by the door. Hungry as he was, he left it untouched in case it was drugged or poisoned. Perhaps that’s what’s wrong with Thero, he told himself as his stomach rumbled. The drooling creature cowering on the bunk bore little resemblance to Nysander’s reserved assistant.

  Giving up at last, he sat down beside Thero on the bunk. “There’s nothing here. You’ve got to tell me what you know. Go slow so I can understand you.”

  Still wild-eyed, Thero nodded and said slowly around the gag, “ ’Eye’ander’s 'ead.”

  “What?” Alec gasped, praying he’d misunderstood.

  “ ’ysander dead. Dead!” Thero wailed, rocking violently back and forth in misery. “My fault!”

  “Stop that,” Alec ordered, shaking him by the shoulders. “Thero, you talk to me. What happened to Nysander? Did you see him killed or did Mardus just tell you it happened?”

  “Carried me ’own, ’lack creatures—through walls, floors—!” Thero hugged himself, shuddering. “ ’tacked ’rëska—’sander on the floor, they made me look. My fault, mine!”

  “Why is it your fault?” Alec demanded, shaking him again. “Thero, what did you do?”

  With a low moan, Thero wrenched away and curled deeper into the corner. There were long, curved scratches on his back and sides, and little crescent-shaped bruises along the tops of his shoulders.

  “It was Ylinestra, wasn’t it?” Alec asked, a vague, half-formed memory shifting uneasily at the back of his mind. “She did something, or you told her something?”

  Thero nodded mutely, refusing to look at him.

  Alec stared at him a moment longer, then rage exploded like a blazing sun in his chest. Grasping the iron band at the back of Thero’s head, he yanked the young wizard out of his corner and shook him like a rat.

  “You listen to me, Thero, and you listen well. If it does turn out that you betrayed us and got Nysander killed, then by all the Four I’ll kill you myself and that’s a promise! But I’m not sure about anything yet and I don’t think you are, either. They’ve done something to your mind and you’ve got to fight it. Fight their magic and tell me what it was you said or did. What she did!”

  “ ’on’t know,” Thero whispered hopelessly, spittle running from the corners of his mouth. “She kep’ me with her ’at night. When black ’uns came, she ’eld me with ’agic. ’en she thanked me and she laughed—She laughed!”

  Releasing Thero in disgust, Alec pressed his fists against his eyes until fiery stars danced behind his closed lids.

  “Thero, what did they do to you? Why can’t you use your magic?”

  Thero held out one arm, showing him the strange iron band.

  “These keep you from using your magic?” Alec reached out and felt the unnatural coldness of the burnished metal. Running his hands over them, he could find no sign of any seam, joint, or hinge.

  “Think so—” Thero shifted uneasily, wiping at his damp beard. “Not ’ertain. So much confused, nightmares, voices! ’don’t dare, A’ek, I don’t dare!”

  “You mean you haven’t even tried?” Alec grasped Thero’s arms, bringing the bands in front of his face. “You’ve got to try something, anything. For all we know these may just be a trick, something to cloud your mind.”

  Thero shrank back, shaking his head desperately.

  “You have to,” Alec insisted, feeling his own desperation creeping back. “We’ve got to get away from Mardus. There’s a lot you don’t know, but believe me, Nysander would want you to help me. If you want to make things right, then you’ve got to at least try!”

  “ ’ander?” Thero’s chest heaved as he looked distractedly around the cabin, as if he expected to find Nysander there. “ ’ander?”

  Sensing a chink in whatever madness held Thero, Alec nodded encouragingly. “Yes, Thero, Nysander. Concentrate on him, his kindness, Thero, all the years you spent with him in the east tower. For the sake of the faith he placed in you, you’ve got to at least try. Please.”

  Thero twisted the edge of the blanket in his fists as tears rolled from his mad eyes. “P’rhaps,” he whispered faintly, “p’rhaps—”

  “Just something very small,” Alec urged. “One of those little spells. What are they called?”

  Thero nodded slowly, still twisting the blanket. “ ’an’rips.”

  “That’s right. Cantrips! Just a simple one, a tiny little cantrip.”

  Trembling visibly, Thero half closed his eyes in preparation for the spell but suddenly looked up again.

  “You ’aid there’s some’ing I ’on’t know,” he asked with a sudden flash of his customary sharpness
. “What? I’s his ’sistant; why didn’t he tell me?”

  “I don’t know,” Alec confessed, getting the gist of Thero’s question. “He told us—told me so little I’m not even sure what it’s all about. But he swore me to secrecy. I shouldn’t have said anything at all, I guess. Maybe later, when we’re out of this—”

  Alec trailed off, suddenly wary. Thero was watching him intently, hanging on every word. “We’ll talk about it later, all right? Please, try the spell now.”

  “ ’ell me first! Could ’elp!” Thero insisted, and this time there was no mistaking the feral intelligence in his eyes.

  “No,” Alec said, slowly moving away, though there was nowhere to go. “I can’t tell you.”

  He tensed for some attack, but instead Thero slumped over sideways on the bunk like a discarded puppet.

  The cabin door opened behind him and Alec felt a wave of terrible coldness roll into the room. Whirling in alarm, he confronted a walking horror.

  It took a moment to see that the wizened husk had once been a woman. Lively blue eyes regarded him slyly from the masklike ruin of her face.

  “That is most ungrateful of you, boy,” she rasped, the cracked remnants of her lips curling back to reveal uneven yellow teeth, “but I think that you will tell me.”

  37

  BEHIND THE LINES

  Stretched prone on the crest of the hill, Beka and Sergeant Braknil shielded their eyes from the drizzle and surveyed the little village below. There were large granaries and warehouses there, the walls of which still had the pale gleam of new wood. Empty wagons of all descriptions stood near a sizable corral. All this, coupled with the cavalry troop billeted just outside the wooden palisade, added up to one thing: a supply depot.

  “Looks like you were right, Lieutenant!” Braknil whispered, grinning wolfishly through his beard.

  Satisfied with their reconnaissance, they made their way cautiously back to the oak grove where the rest of the turma was waiting.

  “What’s the word?” asked Rhylin.

  “We found Commander Klia’s adders,” Braknil told him.

  “A good nest of them, too,” said Beka. “But only one nest, and it took us four days to do it. From the looks of it, I’d say it’s just one link in a supply chain.”

  “You think we should look farther before we go back?” asked Corporal Kallas. He was still mourning his brother and had the look of a man who’d welcome a fight.

  Beka looked around at their dirty, hopeful faces. The depot was an important emplacement, enough of a find to go back with now that their food was running low and the weather had turned foul.

  Her leg ached dully as she shifted her weight. The gash in her thigh had festered just enough to kindle a fever. Though it broke her sleep at night with confused dreams, it seemed to sharpen her wits during the day, as fevers sometimes did.

  “We’ll circle wide and see if we can learn where the wagons are coming from,” she said at last.

  For two days they followed the supply route as it wound south into the steeper country above the head of the Plenimaran isthmus. Beka kept her riders well up in the wooded hills, sending scouts ahead and behind as they went. They spotted two separate wagon trains heading west, but both were too heavily guarded to attack.

  Their seventh day out dawned cold and foggy. Reining her horse to the side of the steep track, Beka watched as the remains of her turma rode past; the fog made it difficult to see more than thirty feet in any direction and she couldn’t afford to lose any stragglers. The uncertain light and muffling effect of the mist lent the riders a ghostly, insubstantial look.

  They all rode with growling bellies. Their food was nearly gone and game was scarce. With the rain and the plentiful mountain springs they had water enough, but hunger soon took the edge off a soldier’s strength. It would probably be wisest to turn back today.

  Just as she was about to call a halt, however, Braknil materialized out of the fog and cantered over to her.

  “The scouts found a way station ahead, Lieutenant. They report four big wagons unhitched there and only a handful of guards,” he informed Beka quietly, then added with a knowing wink, “Quite a manageable gathering, I’d say. Especially in this weather, if you take my meaning.”

  “I believe I do, Sergeant.”

  Leaving Rhylin in command, she followed Braknil to a stone outcropping where Mirn was waiting with several horses.

  “You can see it from just around the next bend in the trail,” he told them, his face flushed and eager beneath his shock of pale hair. Mirn had always reminded Beka a bit of Alec, though a taller, more muscular version.

  Proceeding on foot, they found Steb keeping watch.

  “You can see better now,” he told them, pointing down a gap. “This breeze that’s coming up should clear it off before long.”

  From where they stood, Beka could see a road winding through the narrow cleft of a pass. There was a way station there, an old tumble-down log building, but the stable and large corral next to it were sturdy and new. Rocky slopes rose steeply on both sides of the road, making it the only passable route of attack or escape.

  “I’ve been watching the place,” Steb told them. “I’d say there’s no more than two dozen soldiers and a few wagoneers down there. Nobody’s ridden in or out since we found the place an hour ago.”

  Judging by the activity in the yard, Beka guessed the wagoneers were getting ready to move out, though neither they nor their military escort seemed in any particular hurry. Many still lounged around the station door with trenchers and mugs. The breeze coming up the pass carried the tantalizing aroma of breakfast fires.

  She studied the fog still shrouding the road leading up to the station. “If we move fast, we might get within two hundred yards of the enemy before they catch a good look at us.”

  “And if we circle by this trail and come in on the road from the east, chances are they’ll think we’re friendly forces anyway,” whispered Braknil.

  “Good idea. The Plenimaran cavalry columns travel at a canter in ranks of four. We’ll line up in the same formation. Put anyone who’s riding with Plenimaran tack in front in case they recognize the jingle of the harness.”

  Sergeant Braknil raised an eyebrow, looking impressed. “Who taught you to be such a sly thinker, Lieutenant?”

  Beka gave him a wink. “A friend of the family.”

  Their ruse paid off. The Plenimarans scarcely looked up from their breakfasts as the turma came cantering toward them out of the mist. By the time they drew swords and broke into a gallop, it was already too late.

  They thundered up to the station, whooping and screaming at the top of their lungs. A few of the Plenimaran soldiers stood their ground. Most broke and ran for cover in the station and outbuildings.

  Galloping at full speed, the Skalans rode down the men who stood against them. The Plenimarans put up a brief, determined fight but were no match for the flashing swords and iron-shod hooves that mowed them down. With the station’s one line of defense destroyed, Beka shouted an order and the riders split into decuriae.

  Braknil spotted men running for the cover of the stable and chose that as his target. Wheeling toward the low-roofed building, he and his riders drove the would-be escapees into the stable, then tossed the Plenimarans’ own night lanterns into the straw piled outside the back door. Within seconds, screams rang out from the panicked horses stabled inside. Choking and cursing, those who’d taken refuge there came stumbling out again and were herded at sword point into the corral.

  Rhylin and his decuria attacked the station building. Dashing up to the door, the ungainly sergeant leapt from his horse and threw himself against the door, knocking it open just as the men inside were trying to thrust the bar into place. His assault was successful, but he was nearly trampled for his efforts as the rest of his decuria, led by Kallas and Ariani, stormed in to his aid. The soldiers and wagoneers inside surrendered immediately.

  Beka and a handful of riders rode off in pursu
it of the Plenimarans who had fled at the first sign of attack. Most of those on foot were easily overtaken, but several who’d gotten onto horses broke away down the east road. Beka and her group took off in pursuit, but their quarry had the advantage of fresh horses and a knowledge of the country. Cursing under her breath, she turned back.

  The remaining Plenimarans had been gathered in the station building.

  “I took count, Lieutenant,” Braknil informed her as she dismounted. “Nineteen enemy dead and fifteen taken, counting the wagoneers and stationmaster. Sergeant Rhylin’s got the prisoners under guard.”

  Beka surveyed the bodies scattered between the buildings and the road. “Any losses for us?”

  “Not a scratch,” the sergeant replied happily. “Those little tricks of yours worked!”

  “Good.” Beka hoped her relief wasn’t too obvious. “We don’t want to make the same mistake as our friends in there, so post lookouts on the road. Corporal Nikides!”

  “Here, Lieutenant.” The young man rode over to where she stood.

  “Get someone to help you check the wagons. Let’s hope we haven’t gone to all this trouble for a load of horseshoes and slop pails.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant!” Grinning, he snapped a salute and rode off again.

  Inside the station, the Plenimarans sat packed together at the far end of the building’s single narrow room under the watchful eyes of Rhylin’s guards. Six of the captives were wagoneers; the rest wore black military tunics displaying a white castle emblem.

  Rhylin snapped Beka a smart salute as she entered. “We’ve searched the prisoners and the buildings, Lieutenant. Nothing of note found. It looks like a routine supply train.”

  “Very good, Sergeant.”

  Beka’s long red braid fell free over her shoulder as she removed her helmet. The prisoners exchanged glances and low murmurs among themselves at the sight of it. Several stared at her boldly and one spat sideways onto the floor.

  Gilly moved to avenge the insult, but Beka stayed him with a glance.

  “Who’s the ranking officer here?” she demanded, not bothering to sheath her sword. The prisoners simply stared back at her, silent and insolent.