by Ed Greenwood
The other Telcanor stared at his fellow Molthuni, bouncing senseless in the grass, cast a look of wild-eyed fear at them, and wheeled his mount to frantically gallop away.
"Blast him down!" Tarram shouted.
Tantaerra let her gauntlet-clad arm fall.
"Blast him!"
Tantaerra shook her head. "No," she said sullenly.
"He'll report us, and come back with an army!" The Masked snarled.
"I've killed enough on this trip," she snapped back at him. "Watchguards, soldiers of both sides—I don't see that I had much choice, but I'm sick of it. Now catch that horse, before it decides to follow the other one!"
The Masked shot her a furious look, then sprinted to the snorting, head-tossing horse, caught its reins, and started to murmur soothing sounds to it. It shook itself and lashed out only once, but when he let it trot away, it circled back to him, then stopped and let him catch the reins again.
Still soothing the horse, The Masked swung himself into the saddle, circled to where Tantaerra stood watching, and plucked her up, a little less than gently, to join him.
The horse promptly snorted and tossed its head again, so Tarram kept it to a walk, and turned its head south. The sun would be setting soon.
Tantaerra kept quiet for some time, to give him time to master his temper, before saying, "I can't help but notice that we're heading east instead of south."
"Yes," The Masked snapped.
After riding in silence for a time, he added more gently, "No, I'm not thinking of trying to ride to Canorate, or right out of Molthune. I'm thinking we can't catch that Telcanor, so it'll be wiser to circle around to Braganza rather than heading straight for it—being as anyone he brings back to seek us will look first between Braganza and where you took such good care of our murderous friend with the crossbow."
"Sensible," Tantaerra agreed.
"Thank you. Now, being as you're smaller and lighter, and so shouldn't upset the horse as much as I would, I'm going to move you behind me, so you can go through those saddlebags. I don't know about you, but I'm ravenous—and parched, too."
"Humans," Tantaerra teased, as he twisted in the saddle and swung her less than gracefully around to rest against the saddle's high back. "If you didn't carry around all that unnecessary weight, maybe you wouldn't need to eat so—" Her voice died away.
Tarram must have felt her stiffen. "What?" he asked sharply. "What's wrong?"
She pointed, off across the rolling hills behind him, then remembered he couldn't see without turning.
"We're being followed," she told him quietly. "A lot of riders—armored, by the way they glint and flash in the sun—and coming fast."
The Masked sighed. "Of course we are. What else would make this day complete? Are any of them waving tentacles?"
∗ ∗ ∗
"Got a good firm hold on me?" The Masked asked.
Tantaerra sighed, thrust the stay-peg through the saddlebag flap she'd just managed to get open, and made sure she had a good grip on her partner. "Yes," she told him tersely, knowing what was coming.
"Good," he replied, as he bent low over the horse's neck and kicked it into a gallop.
The mount seemed to want to buck for a moment, then stretched out its neck and raced forward, fairly leaping through the grass in a great rustling hiss, a hissing that went on and on as its hooves pounded up a hill.
The Masked looked back, almost swinging her off.
"Warn me when you're going to do that," she snarled at him through clenched teeth, shifting her grip to his belt—hand clutching it, and stump thrust through it. Now, if she fell off, his breeches would be coming with her. Being as they'd probably have a heavy man inside them who'd undoubtedly land on her, that was probably less than wise, but ...
No doubt their Molthuni pursuers were still right behind them, and probably gaining, too. It was only in bardic ballads that heroes ever outrode anyone.
They veered around the next hill, The Masked forcing their mount up a little valley into rising land of more rolling hills and sharper ridges. It was almost sunset, but this was all open grasslands, halfway from here to Lake Encarthan. There was nowhere to hide—and no way in all wide Golarion that their horse would be able to outrun the Molthuni forever.
A mere moment later, that was proven true. Their mount stumbled on something, faltered—and they were flying through the air, hooves flashing past their ears in a welter of dust and screaming, thudding horse, as their mount fell and rolled past them.
Tantaerra slammed into thankfully soft earth with teeth-jarring force, rolled over with her head swimming, and saw The Masked wincing and clambering back to his feet.
Then she saw what he was staring at.
The Molthuni were galloping right at them, a score of men or more, in full plate armor and with long lances lowered to spit them. Coming fast, the earth thundering now under the churning hooves, the horses snorting and tossing armored heads, the men snarling through their opened helms. Close enough now that they could make out individual faces.
Tantaerra heard her partner chuckle bitterly. A moment later, she saw why.
One rider had familiar face. It was the Mereir recruiter who'd confronted them in their room at the Hearth, back in Braganza.
"Well, this is it, my little pacifist," The Masked growled. "Where we die valiantly." He cast a longing glance at the Fearsome Gauntlet on her hand, but rather than grabbing at it, he did something that astonished Tantaerra. He hooked his arm around her, pulled her close, and kissed her.
His mouth was by no means as foul as she'd feared.
"Well, now," she grinned at him, when their unhurried kiss ended, "we'll have to talk about your aggressive advances upon my person, after."
"You think there's going to be an after?"
"Oh, yes," she replied, holding up the gauntlet and awakening it with her will. It suddenly glowed from one end to the other—a glow that spilled into her eyes, making them literally blaze. "Yes, I do. I kill when I must."
The Molthuni were almost upon them, the din deafening. She leveled her arm at them as if aiming a crossbow, pointing at that Mereir, and—
Another band of mounted Molthuni burst into view over the crest of the ridge beside them, and spurred down the slope to crash into the first band of riders, swords out and hacking hard.
Horses went down and rolled, lances splintered or flew loose into the air, and men died.
"Telcanor!" the riders of this second force shouted, as they slew. "Telcanor forever!"
Tantaerra and her partner gaped in astonishment. Not one of the riders who'd charged them reached them.
Very swiftly, not a soldier of the first force was left alive.
The triumphant Molthuni shouted in glee and lifted their swords. Then one waved his hand in a signal, and that chaos of mounted men funneled into a trotting line that encircled Tantaerra and The Masked. They recognized one face among these riders, too: the Telcanor who'd fled from them after his colleague had tried to use his crossbow to kill them both.
The one who'd signaled the others stopped his horse to grin down at Tantaerra and her partner, and announce cheerfully, "We're here to see you safely back to Braganza. I hope you'll accept our escort willingly and peacefully. There's a lot of danger between here and the city."
"Our peace and willingness," Tantaerra replied quickly and firmly, before The Masked could utter whatever he was starting to say, "depend on who your master is."
The leader's grin widened. "Prudent of you. Know, then, that we're soldiers of Krzonstal Telcanor's personal guard, sent secretly out of Braganza by our lord's head bodyguard, Onstal Zreem, to wait for you near the Inkwater. To ensure that if you got back across the river, you'd make it the rest of the way to Braganza safely."
"'Telcanor forever'?" The Masked inquired mildly.
The leader shrugged. "We were ordered to shout that whenever we went into battle. Our lord desires to get proper credit for seeing your treasure home to Braganza, if there are
any witnesses or wizards spying from afar."
Tantaerra lowered the arm she still had aimed at a foe that was no longer there, the glow from the Fearsome Gauntlet softening. "We accept your kind aid and escort."
"How did the ruler of Braganza take matters," The Masked asked, his voice genuinely curious rather than confrontational, "when a score of fully armored men rode out of his city without him giving any orders or permission?"
"Lord Ravnagask never knew. We went out by threes and fours, for our usual mounted training drills, only one or two coming back, for days and days. No one noticed—except Lord Telcanor, who was told we'd died from poisoned wine."
Tantaerra frowned, and raised the gauntlet again. "So he doesn't know you're out here now?"
"No, no, this is no treachery!" the leader said quickly. "Our orders are to keep you safe and conduct you to the gates of the Telcanor mansion in Braganza, see you let through them, and depart."
Tantaerra and her partner exchanged long, silent looks. Then The Masked shrugged.
Tantaerra shrugged back, turned to the Telcanor leader, and nodded. "Do so, then," she said crisply.
The leader waved his hand in another signal, and his Telcanors formed a two-rider-thick ring around Tantaerra and The Masked, giving them quite a bit of clear space. Horses caught from those left riderless by the slain Mereirs were brought to them, one each, and before Tantaerra could protest or attempt a running leap into the offered saddle, The Masked lifted her onto it with the deft dignity of a royal servant.
The leader rode to take rearguard, waved his hand again, and the mounted Molthuni started to move.
Chapter Nineteen
Blade, Gauntlet, and Wizard
The sun had set, and the moon risen. Inside their defensive ring of warriors, The Masked and Tantaerra rode on steadily across Molthune's grasslands, heading for Braganza.
Whether we want to or not, Tantaerra thought to herself. The rolling fields were coldly beautiful under brightening moonlight, and she and Tarram rode side by side and close together, talking quietly of what they would do when delivered into Telcanor's clutches. The Telcanor leader had pointedly dropped back so they could have privacy.
Not that they'd decided anything useful when the inevitable interruption came.
The foremost riders slowed, then called back, "Dweomercats ahead! Heading the same way we are."
The sharpest-eyed Telcanor promptly added, "There's a patrol—soldiers of Molthune, in proper uniform—riding in the midst of them."
The leader promptly ordered, "Hard right, everyone. Whatever's going on, we don't want to get mixed up in it."
The Telcanors veered right to give the dweomercats a wide berth, though in this open country, under bright moonlight, the cats and the Molthuni among them couldn't help but see the Telcanors.
Eventually the two bands were abreast of each other, the Telcanors well to the south of the dweomercats they'd overtaken—which was when the cats and their Molthuni turned sharply south, as if to intercept the ring of Braganzans.
"Halt!" the Telcanor leader called, and his men reined in, their ring tighter around Tantaerra and her partner, and watched the dweomercats. Who turned more sharply, to come right at them.
As another mounted Molthuni force appeared over a hill behind the dweomercats and galloped right at them, shouting in challenge.
A glow flared up from these new riders; someone among them had cast a spell. It washed over the dweomercats—and suddenly the cats were upon the newcomers, squalling and leaping at horses. The Molthuni that had been riding at the heart of the dweomercats all wheeled around to ride toward the source of the spell.
As the Telcanors sat on their horses and watched, there was a brief melee of milling horses, shouting men, and swords waved in warning—and another spell flashed out at the men who'd ridden with the dweomercats. Several fell from their saddles—but one hacked and hewed with a sword that was suddenly afire with an intense magical light, carving his way through Molthuni toward the source of the spells.
"Let's get gone, well away from here!" the Telcanor leader snapped, and set his mount to a gallop. The Masked veered his horse as close to the distant battle as the ring of riders allowed, peering hard.
Another spell flashed, hurled at the rider with the glowing sword, and Tantaerra cursed softly as she recognized it as the Whispering Blade.
A moment later, the spell was gone, sucked into the sword in a whirling vortex. Whereupon the Molthuni wielding the sword reached the wizard—and sprang from his saddle to embrace the caster.
They swayed atop the wizard's rearing horse, surrounded by the sword's bright glow. Within it, the rider could be seen thrusting the glowing sword into the wizard's hand and forcing him to hold it. Then the rider stiffened, impaled on the thrusting swords of several of the Molthuni riding with the wizard, and fell.
The Masked stood in his stirrups to try to see more, but the onrushing Telcanors had galloped over a rise, and tall moonlit grass hid the fate of the wizard and his new sword from view.
"Down, man!" the Telcanor leader snapped. "Do you have to fall out of your saddle to know they'll be after us? Ride hard!"
The Masked obeyed that command, but when he looked back a short time later, he was unsurprised to see the Molthuni and the dweomercats racing after them, likely to overtake the galloping ring of Telcanors long before they reached Braganza.
∗ ∗ ∗
The moonlight was serene. There was nowhere at all to hide in the coldly spotlit open country beneath it, and the horses were tiring. A tiny handful of twinkling lights on the horizon marked the walls of Braganza, but they might as well have been far across the Inner Sea. It wouldn't be long now.
Tantaerra looked back again. Yes, the pursuing Molthuni were much closer, and the dweomercats were darting excitedly up to the hooves of the rearmost Telcanors, falling back, then bounding up again.
They want to be where the magic is strongest. The Whispering Blade and the wizard wielding it are stronger than this gauntlet and Tarram's mask. We're doomed.
"Tarram Armistrade," she called, amid the pounding hooves, "it's time."
The mask—always, one mask or another—turned toward her. "Time?"
"You know a lot more about this Fearsome Gauntlet than you've told me," she said grimly. "When I open my mind to it, I just about get fried; there's no way I can stay in this saddle if I try now! If there's anything that can help us against Mahalagris—and that's him back there, in the wizard's body, I'm sure of it—you have to tell me! Our only hope is if he dismisses me as a know-nothing and goes for you ...and by then, it'll be too damned late to tell me anything! Now's the time to say all!"
Before The Masked could reply, the night behind them erupted in roaring flames.
Horses screamed and faltered, a wave of heat rolled over them, and ...they were still alive, still galloping raggedly on.
Tantaerra looked back. Flames from the fireball were racing away in all directions through the grass, the dew clinging to it going up in smoke, and behind her horse's tail was nothing but blackened earth. The back of the Telcanor ring—including its capable leader—was simply gone. Blown to burning, tumbling ashes.
There was nothing now but whirling embers and cinders, grass, and moonlit air between Tantaerra and her partner, and their pursuers.
"Imagine you're holding up a shield in front of you," Tarram blurted, "and looking over its curved top edge, in this moonlight, so you see a silvery curve. Yes? Hold that image in your mind, and open to the gauntlet. Ignore all its chaos, and hold that image."
Tantaerra did that. The magic tugged at her thoughts, at her very head, but she clung to the image of a silver arc. "Done," she gasped.
"Picture the silver turning glowing white," The Masked said swiftly, "and hold that new bright white light in your mind."
Luraumadar, his mask said excitedly, in a hiss the gauntlet let Tantaerra hear—the same hiss as the Whispering Blade. Luraumadar.
Tantaerra clung to t
hat image, aware that the knuckles of the Fearsome Gauntlet were now glowing that same hue. Tarram reached out and closed his hand firmly around her leg.
Mahalagris stood up in his stirrups and hurled another spell. She could feel it rushing toward them, feel it looming up to crash over—
There was an eerie green flash of light, and the air shattered.
All around them it cracked, in a great blast that took the legs out from under every horse in the hard-galloping ring, hurling every last Telcanor out of his saddle.
Leaving Tantaerra, her partner, and their horses untouched amid a tight shroud of snarling air, as magic warred with magic—and then was gone, racing back to smash into the legs of the pursuing horses like a glowing green fist, bowling them over as it had the Telcanors.
Tantaerra looked at The Masked as he released his grip. The gauntlet had gone dark.
"We can only use that protection the once," Tarram told her, fighting to control his frightened horse. "It's done until tomorrow."
Tantaerra rolled her eyes. "Which means the next..."
He didn't even have time to nod before the next spell came.
Not at them, this time, but at the ground right in front of them, blasting it into the air in a geyser of lofted dirt and stones to carve out a huge pit floored with a heap of suddenly exposed boulders.
Their horses plunged helplessly into the earthen gulf, shrieking—and Tantaerra was flung through the air, Tarram cartwheeling along beside her.
He slammed into deep, loose earth with a grunt. She bounced off his shoulder, skidded on her behind a long way through crackling grass, fell into a roll, and came to a halt with dirt raining down on her head out of the night sky.
Fury choked her. "Gods-cursed wizards!" she spat. "Spells, spells, spells! Smash this corner of Golarion, then that one! Let's see how you like it!"
Ignoring the dweomercats, she lifted her arm toward the gleaming line of armored Molthuni soldiers now coming at her on foot and gave them lightning. A crackling line of searing blue-white sprang from one armored soldier to the next, sending them into spasmodic jerkings and stiff staggerings. Then the lightning was done, and armored warriors lay sprawled and fallen, with smoke curling up from their motionless bodies.