A Hero Born

by Michael A. Stackpole

  I glanced down at her. “You’re abandoning your belief in destiny?”

  “No, just explaining things in terms you will understand.” She smiled. “Just as you feel compelled to come into Chaos and risk your life doing something your father failed to do, so must I be in that tower. My future is accessible only through that tower.”

  Her last comment sent a chill down my spine. I recalled lasra’s comment about her not being able to see more futures for Xoayya if she did not enter Chaos. Could it be that her future further narrowed to a choke point that only allowed one choice. If I did not put her in the tower, would I be killing her?

  By putting her in the tower you most certainly will kill her.

  Pain linked my temples with a lightning bolt. I wanted to deny her a place in the tower, but I didn’t think I could do that any more than I could have denied her permission to travel with us. And the fact was that our chances of survival were so slender that to keep her out of the tower meant she would only survive a short while longer.

  If she chooses to die in the tower, can I gainsay her the choice?

  I sighed. “You can join Nagrendra in the tower. Don’t interfere with him, or you could jeopardize the survival of everyone.”

  She stood on her tiptoes and gave me a quick kiss. “You won’t regret this.”

  “You say that, but I know I will.”

  “It’s my fate, Locke, not your fault.” She winked at me. “You bear no guilt in what must be.”

  As night fell, we made the final preparations for battle. Taci cast several spells creating light to counter the Bharashadi advantages in the dark. She focused them on the front of the mansion, about two feet above the windows and doorway. She made them bright enough to illuminate the courtyard out to where Nagrendra had his first line of stones. Because of the location of the glowing white balls, they cast long shadows back into the windows and effectively helped hide our waiting archers.

  As darkness fell we began to hear yips and screams. Fierce yowls ripped through the air, and 1 felt a shiver run down my spine. Tyrchon smiled at me from across the corridor. “Don’t worry, Locke, these are Bharasfiadi, not ]odlinaro. The Screamers can hurt you with their voices, but not these beasts.”

  ! glanced out through the doorway and saw golden glints in the night. They looked at first like fireflies, but 1 saw they moved in pairs and realized they had to be Bfiarasfiadi eyes. 1 found them just as haunting as what I remembered from the sewers. “I don’t remember the Bfiarasfiadi sorcerer as being quite so tall.”

  “Old trick. You have one Chademon on the other’s shoulders. The lower one has his eyes shut.” Tyrchon half shut his eyes and nodded. “They are enjoying this because they know not everyone here is a Rider. Still, the warriors will be larger than your magicker.”

  “They won’t employ their magick users in the first attack?”

  “Unlikely, though you never know. Warriors usually make up the first wave they send at any target. Magick can come later. Remember, if you see red magick, it’s them. Kill the sorcerer and save us trouble.”

  When they came, they came in a wave that flowed slowly in toward our position. With their manes shaved away from the sides of their heads, they were very tall and decidedly fearsome. Their muscles rippled beneath coats of short black fur, and tails twitched in anticipation of the battle. They crept through the darkness, inching up to the light’s perimeter, wary yet charged with nervous energy. As they reached Nagrendra’s first line of defense, my heart began to beat quicker. “Watch this.”

  The first one stepped beyond it and nothing happened. And then a second and a third walked over the line 1 had paced out. “What?”

  Tyrchon growled at me. “Nagrendra knows what he is doing.”

  From either wing of the house our archers let fly. At such close range each shaft struck with deadly precision. Five Bharashadi fell, but three of them got back up again and limped away. The other two, one of which was throat-stuck with Osane’s gilded broadhead, left trails of blood as other Chademons dragged them off by their ankles.

  Tyrchon backed to the doorways leading into the front rooms. “Gut shoot them. One arrow won’t kill them unless you get lucky or have the Sunbird on your side. Make them hurt.” He looked at me and my sword. “Get ready. You may only be an Apprentice with that thing, but you will do a lourneyman’s work tonight. They will come fast this time.”

  The Bharashadi broke from the shadows and ran at us like lunatics. They screeched and shrieked at us, brandishing swords and axes as if they were powerful talismans. In they raced, a tidal wave of ferocity. They sped past Nagrendra’s first line of defense, and I tightened my hands on the hilt of my sword.

  This is the first chance you get to prove yourself a hero, Locke!

  Suddenly the world between the Chademons and us exploded. Huge fangs of blue fire erupted from the ground. They chewed through the front ranks of the Bharashadi. Several Chademons dissolved in the magickal fire before my eyes. The bitter stink of burned flesh and singed fur nearly overwhelmed me as the acrid smoke made my eyes water.

  I blinked the tears away and set myself as the flames died abruptly. While many of the Black Shadows fled burning, and others had been knocked sprawling by the blast, several leaped over charred corpses and ran on at us. Bowstrings twanged and Bharashadi went down, but three kept coming.

  I stepped into the northwing room as a Bharasfiadi warrior sailed through one of the windows, knocking Donla down. It turned on her, raising its sword to split her head, but coming from the side 1 parried the blow and let the Chademon’s own strength carry my blade down into its left thigh. The Bharasfiadi roared with pain as I slid my sword free.

  It pivoted on its injured leg and aimed a backhanded slash at my waist. Twisting, I brought my sword up to the left and around, barely catching the blow in time. 1 parried the sword up and over my head, ducked beneath the cut, shifted my grip, and brought the blade down on its sword arm. I struck its left hand off, sending the blade flying.

  I expected the Chademon to retreat from such a hideous wound, but it attacked instead. With a swipe of its right hand it tore away my armored face mask and started a trickle of blood from my right cheek. 1 stumbled back from its attack, belatedly bringing my sword up into a guard position. Before it could spring at me and take advantage of my misfortune, a golden arrow punched through its chest and pinned it to the wall. The Chademon clawed at the shaft, breaking it, but died as it tried to lever itself free.

  I stared at the Bfiarasfiadi. Cut and bleeding, with a hand gone and an arrow in its chest, it had continued to fight. “It should have been dead twice over.”

  Osane, nocking another arrow, shook her head. “Bfiarasfiadi just require a lot of killing.” She pointed to the hand still gripping the sword. “Pry that loose with your sword and toss it out onto one of the burning bodies. The Black Demons have to be whole to be resurrected, and I do not believe ashes are acceptable.”

  I did as she told me, retrieved my face mask, then returned to the corridor. Tyrchon looked at my bloodied blade, then nodded. I retied the face mask, resettled my helmet, and waited. “What now, Tyrchon?”

  “The magick surprised them They will wait and make us wait.”

  Wait we did. The Bfiarasfiadi renewed their serenade, and it began to make the horses nervous. That, in turn, put us on edge again. My hands began to shake, but Tyrchon explained that was merely the aftermath of dealing with the excitement of the attack. He held his right hand up, and it quivered like a leaf in a storm.

  “You did fine, Locke. You will do even better.”

  When they came again, after two hours, i had no choice but to do better. They ran at us again, and Nagrendra triggered the spell using the outer set of paving stones. In an eyeblink, a solid sky-blue wall linked each of the stones. The leading edge of the running Chademons hit it and passed through, but fell and thrashed on the ground as tendrils of blue lightning caressed them. Their bodies began to smoke, then burst into flame as the ligh
tning died, and they lay still.

  Then, suddenly, two things happened. One portion of the magickal wall collapsed, creating a twenty-foot- wide breach in our defenses. It looked to me as if the blood spilled from one of the arrow-shot Black Shadows might have trailed across one of the anchor-stones. For whatever the reason, though, that section of the wall flashed twice, then evaporated.

  Bfiarasfiadi poured through the gap at us.

  Worse than that, behind them red-gold lines of magick drew themselves from the darkness to each of the paving stones and on up the tower. They circled it like ivy, then tightened around the top like a noose. A golden flash pulsed up the magickal artery, crushing the top of the north tower into dust and gravel. Debris tumbled down into the courtyard, battering a few of the

  Bharashadi, but more came in to replace them as the blue walls all fell.

  “Magickers!” Tyrchon snapped. “Feather them, or we are lost.”

  The archers sent two volleys into the charging demons, then fell back as per new orders Tyrchon shouted. They sprinted into the central courtyard on either side of Taci as she stalked forward. Tyrchon and I stepped into the rooms the archers had occupied, and Taci’s hands convulsed down into fists.

  The spell she triggered exploded the window casings and door framing outward. Thousands of stone fragments flew through the courtyard, literally shredding the forward line of Chaos demons. Bodies tumbled back, and others fell over the top of them. The explosive thunderclap swallowed most of the initial screams of pain, but others echoed through the mansion.

  The Bharashadi kept coming. Taci retreated down the main corridor, and a volley of arrows greeted the Black Shadows pouring in through the central door. One with an ax leaped into the room where I stood and chopped murderously at me. i sidestepped the diagonal cut, then closed and slashed at his belly. He tried to twist away, but I laid his flank open.

  As he backed from me, pawing his wound, another Bharashadi leaped in through a window and collided with him. My first foe spun down and hit the wall while the other, who had his legs cut from beneath him, landed facefirst. He bounced up from the ground, and his neck looked broken to me, but I crushed his skull with an overhand blow to make sure. Bringing my sword back around, I beat down the first Bharashadi’s ax and trimmed his skull down to the level of his eyes.

  The terrible cacophony of battle swirled around me, as exhilarating and obscene as the tune Fialchar had played for the Emperor. Someone in the inner courtyard shouted about the horses while someone else cried “Up there!” 1 heard the wet thunk of an arrow hitting home, Cruach’s bass barks, and the terrified neighing of horses. A scream ending in a gurgle marked the end of Aleix’s life, though it vanished beneath a Bharasfiadi’s victorious roar. Bharasfiadi voices howled in delight or pain, and the sound of steel on steel rang throughout the house.

  I saw Bharasfiadi run down the main corridor, then another jumped over Aleix’s body and into the room where I stood. He bore a black sword easily a foot longer than mine. Crystalline fangs flashed within a rot gray mouth as he smiled at me. i dropped into a guard and he laughed with the same choked snarl I had heard in a hundred nightmares. Taller and stronger than I, this was a creature deserving of life only in bad dreams, yet here it faced me with three yards of sharpened steel separating us.

  The Bharasfiadi warrior hissed at me and brought his sword around in a diagonal slash. I blocked it and staggered beneath the impact, but remained on my feet. His blade came back to his right shoulder, and he brought it crashing down again at my left shoulder. This time 1 parried higher than before, having anticipated the attack, but 1 had no time to riposte before he tried the same cut a third time.

  1 parried high right, then slid forward and kicked at his right knee. He moved away, so my heel missed his leg, but my spur slashed across his knee. The wound surprised him, which made him hesitate a moment. I feinted an attack at his face, and he parried across his body. 1 shifted to my left, moving opposite his parry, and disengaged my blade from his. Sliding my blade forward, 1 hooked the tip in his right armpit, stabbed, and ripped the blade free.

  Steaming purple blood pulsed from the wound. Any human foe I had struck that badly would have retired to staunch the wound before he died. I already knew better than to expect that from one of these monsters, so I ducked his return cut, then slashed from low left to upper right, nearly severing his right knee from behind. His leg bent funny, and he went down, though he still snarled at me defiantly.

  Two more Bharasfiadi came in through the windows, and 1 knew I was done. Then i heard our horses running through the corridor toward the courtyard. In desperation I whistled loud and long for Stail, then set myself to try and kill the two ax-wielding Chademons facing me. As I did so Audin’s words came to me: Men die trying, but they live by doing!

  Stail burst into the room through the doorway from the central corridor. The Bharashadi on the horse’s back smashed into the lintel, his head snapping back. He unceremoniously somersaulted from the saddle back over the stallion’s rump and crashed to the floor. Bleeding from several wounds, the horse barreled into one of the two Chademons facing me, pitching him forward. I slipped to the left, then swung with all my might and chopped free through the Chademon’s neck.

  As his body fell beside me, the Bharashadi I had wounded in the armpit stabbed up from the floor, driving his sword up into Stail’s chest. The horse shrieked and stomped both hooves through the Chademon’s rib cage. Blood running from his nostrils and a pink foam on his mouth, Stail fell on his side, pinning the last Chademon against the wall. I heard both of the Bharashadi’s legs break, then my slash struck all life from his eyes.

  Not thinking clearly, I ran from my room and down the corridor to the inner courtyard. I saw Osane and

  Tyrchon fighting a rearguard action. Behind them the others retreated into the more defensible part of the mansion, the one built into Gorecrag itself. 1 doubt any of them saw me because of the dozen or so Bharashadi between us, but even if they had, there was nothing they could have done. I was as far beyond their reach as Castel Payne was beyond mine.

  1 heard a hiss behind me and spun to face one of the largest Bharashadi I had yet seen. He looked at me and laughed, then hissed something i took to be a command. The Chademons broke off their attack on my companions and moved to surround me from one side, while the other Chademons in the corridor cut off that route of escape. I kept my sword in a guard and watched the Bharashadi warrior study the steaming blood dripping down over the blade.

  Behind me my companions shut and barred the doors to their sanctuary. As I slowly turned a circle to keep the Chademons at bay, 1 saw the door to Roarke’s infirmary still closed, but two smaller Bharashadi were heading for it. As last I knew Cruach had been left to guard Roarke, I figured the first sorcerer through the door would have quite a surprise waiting for him.

  The big Bharashadi crackle-hissed. “You are a virgin from Wallfar. Your flesh will be sweet.”

  I turned around to face him. “And I will drink your blood before you taste my flesh.” I reached up with my left hand and pulled my face mask away. “Before this night is done, you will wish you had my face on a vindictxvara.” 1 looked around at the other Bharashadi, and they looked at me with what I can only imagine was awe at the audacity of my boast.

  Their surprise bought me a couple more seconds of life, allowing me to see the pair of Bharashadi sorcerers open the door to Roarke’s infirmary. Cruach’s leap bowled the first magicker over, and I saw purple blood geyser onto the wall as the hound ripped his teeth free of the sorcerer’s throat. Cruach then charged back into the infirmary after the second one. I heard a scream, then a thunderous, roiling ball of red-gold fire blasted back out the door and up through the roof.

  As flaming bits of rafters and sharp fragments of roof tile started to rain down, 1 struck at my distracted enemies. My first thrust punched through one Chademon’s belly. I yanked the blade free into a crosscut slash that disemboweled a second demon and though
t I might even account for a third before one of the others buried an ax in my skull.

  I spun, placing my back to the gap I had opened in the Bharashadi circle, in hopes of catching one of the Chademons coming at my back. One was, but not under his own power.

  He stumbled toward me, his chest a ruin because of the emerald hoof that had kicked through him as easily as if he was dry-rot wood.

  The Emerald Horse reared up and neighed defiantly, then slammed both hooves down, crushing tiles beneath them. Behind him, strewn along the corridor, 1 saw broken and dying Bharashadi, and yet the only blood on the jewel stallion came from their wounds. The Chademons in the courtyard melted away from him like night before the dawn.

  Without a second thought 1 tangled the fingers of my left hand in his mane and leaped onto his broad back. His body felt warm and soft, as though it were living tissue not stone. I braced myself to be thrown off him, knowing that to lose my place was to die. To my surprise the Emerald Horse did nothing to rid himself of me.

  In fact, he did nothing. He remained utterly still, as if he had become a statue.

  I gently prodded him with my heels. “Go.”

  He remained motionless.

  The Chademons began to recover from their fear.

  “Get going.” I tightened my knees and gave him some spur.

  The Chademons began to creep closer.

  “Go. Fly!” I slapped my left hand against his neck. “Fly, you stupid beast, fly like the wind, dammit!”

  He reared and spun back toward the corridor with no warning. I barely got my grip on his mane again when he leaped away from the closing Bfiarasfiadi warriors. His ears pressed flat against his head, and with me hunkered down with my head along his neck, he raced back through the mansion. His hooves struck sparks from the stones as he galloped out into the courtyard. Faster and faster he ran, faster than any horse had ever run before. The rushing air made my eyes water, blurring the vision of broken bodies, burning demons, and crushed stone outside the mansion.