Worse, he, too, felt it within, as if it sought to possess him, make him a part of it.
“I have come to the conclusion,” mocked Darkhorse, “that the Dragonrealm likes nothing more than to see the creatures who inhabit it existing in constant frustration and despair! Yes, it makes perfect sense to me!” He pawed at the ground, strewing age-old rock behind him as easily as if it had been loose sand. “It will be slow going I am afraid. I might be more willing to risk myself and travel at a quicker pace, but your kind is not as durable. Should something happen, I would never forgive myself.”
The warlock tightened his grip and adjusted his seating. “I want to get moving, too. Do what you can; I’m more durable than you think, Darkhorse.”
This brought a short but honest chuckle from his fearsome companion. “You may be right! Very well, hold tight to the reins; you will need them this time!”
Darkhorse began to trot, but it was a trot no other horse could have matched. The massive stallion’s pace quickly ate up ground. Even despite the swift pace, however, both were careful to keep themselves at their most wary. By this time, Cabe had become fairly certain that the wolf raider camp did exist. It was likely they were still too far away from it to be noticed, but there was still the danger of scouts. The raiders were not the only threat, either. What the Quel might be up to while all this was going on, he could not say, but the warlock was certain that they had to be involved somehow. It would have been impossible for the invaders not to have discovered some trace of them. Likewise, it was improbable that the Quel would share the Crystal Dragon’s apparent unconcern about the overrunning of their domain. It was just not the Quel way. Cabe was too familiar with the underdwellers not to understand that.
The fog continued to thicken until it almost seemed they were traveling through a wall of rotting cotton rather than mist. Even after he had given in to the inevitable and had enhanced his vision, the frustrated spellcaster could still see no farther than two, maybe three yards in any one direction.
“It might as well be night!” grumbled Darkhorse.
“At least we’d be able to see at night,” returned Cabe. He wondered what things would be like when the sun did set. Could it be any worse than this? “Are we at least heading in the correct direction? I can’t tell.”
“More or less yes is the best response I can give you, Cabe. This is a malevolent mist; it seeks to turn me in circles, I think.” Again, he sniffed the air. “There is a foulness here that I know from long ago. I cannot believe that it might be what I think it is, but what else? We would have been better off coming here half-dazed and stumbling in the darkness!”
“What can we do now?”
Darkhorse had no answer for that. A depressing silence lingered over the two for some time after. Cabe was certain that it was induced by the sinister haze. It was just too cloying a feeling. No matter how hard he sought to fling it off, it stuck to him.
They journeyed for what was at least three hours by Cabe’s admittedly questionable reckoning, but forced to slow down because of the lack of visibility and their inability to sense much farther than they could see, the pair had hardly made any headway in that time. He hoped that anyone else they might encounter would at least be at the same disadvantage. His one fear was that this was a trick of the raiders, yet it would have been extremely complicated to create a spell that would blind one’s adversaries but allow one’s own army to see. Such a spell would require more than a simple thought. It would require such mental manipulation of the natural forces of the world that it would take days to even prepare for it.
The raiders also suffered from a lack of competent mages, if he recalled one of the Gryphon’s earliest messages describing the beginning days of the war overseas. Admittedly, years had passed since that message and it was possible new sorcerers had risen since then, but nothing of that sort had ever been mentioned by the lionbird in any of his later dispatches. The Gryphon would not have excluded such news.
But we’ve heard nothing from him of late . . . Although that thought would continue to nag him, Cabe was still fairly certain that the fog was not the work of the Aramites. It was not their sort of weapon.
It was only minutes later that they heard the clattering of rock.
Darkhorse halted and swung his head toward the direction of the noise. He said nothing, but twisted enough so that he could meet his companion’s eyes. Cabe nodded. One hand went to the short blade at his side. Magic was his foremost weapon, but he had learned to keep other options available.
They remained still. For a time, the only sound was the warlock’s quiet breathing. Then they heard the shifting of more rock, closer and more to their right.
The black stallion abruptly raised his head. “I smell-”
A gray-brown form the size of a large dog leapt at Cabe.
The thing was almost upon him before he struck back with a crude but handy force spell. Cabe smelled breath so rancid his stomach nearly turned. The creature howled as it was thrust back from its prey. He had not used enough power to kill it, but the thing was stunned. There was no doubt of that.
Darkhorse did not wait to see what it was that had assaulted them. He reared and came down on the beast’s head with both hooves. The skull might have been made from the most delicate crystal, so completely did it shatter under the tremendous strength of the shadow steed’s legs.
The warlock turned away in disgust. The massive stallion peered down at the horrendous carnage he had caused, then finally muttered, “Only a minor drake! A small one at that!”
“It was large enough for me, thank you. Strange, I didn’t even sense it with my sorcery.”
“Nor I! It was my sense of smell that did it in and that only when it was near enough to spring!”
Cabe finally forced himself to look down at the mangled corpse of the creature. It was not large by the standards of its kind, but, as he had commented, definitely large enough. Its presence puzzled him, however. “It should’ve never attacked us.”
“Yes, that was its undoing to be sure!”
“That’s not what I meant.” Cabe pointed at the still form. “A minor drake that small rarely attacks something our size. Maybe if it had been part of a pack, but it seems to be alone.”
“That is true,” Darkhorse conceded. “Perhaps it was confused by this infernal fog.”
“Confused and frightened. Maybe more.”
“Meaning?”
The human sighed. “Meaning that we had best be even more cautious. I think this fog’s as much a danger to our minds and our bodies as it is to our eyes.”
Darkhorse shook his mane and laughed. “We are far superior to this hapless beast! We know what this mist can do; therefore we are prepared!”
“I hope so.”
They left the corpse and moved on. More time passed, but how much more, Cabe could no longer even estimate. When the twinkle of light caught his eye, the warlock was not certain whether it was a torch or perhaps a star. For all he knew, night had already come upon them. The longer one was trapped in the smothering mist, the duller the senses seemed to become. Still, Cabe was fairly certain that what he had seen was real, not imagined. He pulled on the reins.
“A simple ‘stop’ will suffice, you know. I am not trained for the reins.”
“Sorry.” The warlock’s voice was low, almost a whisper. “I saw something to”-if they were traveling west . . . if-“to the south. A light. It twinkled.”
“Perhaps this blasted blanket is finally being thrown back, hmmm?” The eternal looked in the direction his rider had specified. “I see nothing nor do I sense anything out of the ordinary . . . not that there is much ordinary left.”
“I was certain . . .” He saw the twinkle again. “There!”
Hesitation, then, “I see it. What would you have me do, Cabe? Shall we investigate it?”
“There doesn’t seem to be any other choice. Have you noticed anything else that has had the ability to pierce this thick soup? I’d like
to know what that is.”
“Then it is settled. Good!”
Darkhorse picked his way carefully toward the glimmer. Cabe noticed for the first time that the shadow steed’s hooves made no sound as he crossed the uneven, rock-strewn ground. They had probably not made a sound since the eternal had entered Legar. It was often hard for even Cabe to remember that his companion’s external appearance in no way represented what Darkhorse truly was. The eternal simply admired the form. That did not mean that he obeyed every physical law demanded by such a shape. Darkhorse did what Darkhorse chose to do.
Below him, the shadow steed snorted in what was clearly anxiety. That bothered Cabe, for Darkhorse was not a being who often grew even the slightest bit nervous.
“I know this foulness . . .” he whispered. “I know this stench; I do!”
The light winked out again. The shadow steed halted. The two studied the area before them, but everywhere they looked, they only spotted the same murkiness.
“Where did it go? Do you see it, Cabe?”
“No . . . there!” His words were barely audible. Even sound seemed deadened by the murky fog.
Darkhorse followed his outstretched hand toward the light’s new location. It was now to their right, which was west, the direction they had been originally headed. The ebony stallion snorted. “How did it come to be there now?”
“Magic.”
The eternal slowed. “I will not go about this dismal land chasing phantom lights!”
“I don’t blame-” The dark-haired spellcaster broke off as he noticed the twinkling light begin to move. “You won’t have to! It’s coming for us!”
Even Darkhorse could not have moved fast enough to avoid it. Cabe raised his arms over his face and summoned a shielding spell that he hoped would halt at least a substantial part of the oncoming juggernaut’s power.
The light struck them . . . and scattered into a thousand tinier sparks that quickly faded away, leaving no trace of their fleeting existence.
“Someone wants to play games with us?” Darkhorse snorted and looked around for someone or something on which to vent his anger. “I will be more than happy to show them a new game!” He tore at the ground with one hoof, scattering rock.
“Quiet!” Cabe whirled around in the saddle.
“What is it?”
“I thought I heard . . .” Something clinked. It was the familiar and ominous sound of metal upon metal, a sound that from Cabe’s vast experience spoke of men in armor. Men in armor who must be very near.
He heard it again, but this time it was in front of them. Below him, the shadow steed pricked up his ears, an equine habit learned during those long ago first days when the eternal had first experimented with the form.
A tall black figure coalesced before them.
Of the three of them, the wolf raider was the most surprised by the encounter, but that in no way meant that he was the slowest to react. His blade already out, he moved in on Cabe. There was no question, no demand for surrender, simply a strange, high cry and then an attack.
Darkhorse easily kept himself between the Aramite and the warlock. The raider slashed at him with the sword and Darkhorse, chuckling in an evil manner, allowed the edge to strike him in the neck. It was as if the attacker had tried to cut through solid stone. The blade snapped and the entire weapon fell from the startled raider’s hand.
His confused hesitation was all the time the deadly stallion needed. Rising just a bit, Darkhorse kicked the Aramite in the chest. The force of the blow was enough to send the armored man flying back into the mist. Cabe winced as a heavy thud finally put an end note to the raider’s haphazard flight.
Where there is one wolf raider, however, there must be others. The Gryphon had often written comments like that in his missives. The Aramites were, for the most part, pack creatures like the animal that was their namesake. Cabe, already cautious, sensed them before he heard them. They were coming from all sides in numbers enough to startle him.
“We’ve run into a patrol!” he whispered to his companion.
“Excellent! Rather would I fight something real than wander much longer in this thick morass!”
“That’s not-” He had not time enough to finish, for the first shapes materialized then.
They moved in with fair but not exceptional precision. It was clear that the wolf raiders were put off by the rank fog, but they had been trained to suffer most any environment in the pursuit of their tasks and so they were adapting as best possible. Listening, Cabe now understood the purpose of the initial cry by the first raider. The Aramites were using it to keep in contact with one another, evidently deciding that stealth was not worth the cost of possibly losing every man to the mist.
“Well?” Darkhorse was suddenly shouting to the oncoming shadows. “Come, come! I have not all day! There are still other tasks I must deal with after I have finished with all of you!”
“Darkhorse . . .” This was not what the warlock had wanted. He had hoped to avoid danger as much as possible, which was one reason he had sought out the shadow steed. Darkhorse, while always willing to face an enemy, generally also respected the safety of his companions. Now, however, he was taking chances that Cabe felt were more than a little risky. The eternal was begging for a fight and it could only be because of Shade again. Wandering through the fog, seeing nothing, the shadow steed’s thoughts must have returned to the subject that had become so much a part of his recent life.
It was too late to do anything about it now. The Aramites were coming at them from all directions and it would have been sheer folly to attempt to teleport away. Something within warned Cabe Bedlam that a teleport threatened his life more than this attack.
Two other swordsmen tried to cut Darkhorse’s forelegs, but met with the same results as their predecessor. The demon steed kicked one of them back into the fog, but the other managed to avoid the blow. He pulled a curled dagger from his belt and threw it, but at Cabe, the rider, rather than Darkhorse. It still had not registered in the minds of the raiders that the horse was the greater of the threats to them. They assumed that with the rider under control or dead, the battle would be won.
The warlock saw the dagger coming and although he had shielded himself against ordinary weapons, he deflected it, deciding that it was not wise to risk himself because of overconfidence. Then he turned as both his magical senses and his ears warned him of several raiders coming from the rear. A lance came within a yard of him, but with a spell he lifted both the weapon and the man and used them to clear four other soldiers nearby. The spell suddenly went awry, however, and the lancer dropped to the ground like a rock. The raider scrambled to his feet and back into the fog.
“Careless,” a voice said.
Cabe looked at Darkhorse, but the stallion was busy dealing with both the raider who had evaded his first assault and two others who had joined the survivor. One was trying to rope the eternal, a foolish maneuver if ever there was one. Darkhorse caught the rope in his teeth and, while the Aramite was still holding it, pulled with such might that he sent the soldier flying into his companion. Both collided with a harsh clang and crumpled to the ground. The soldier who had survived the earlier attack backed away, almost immediately disappearing into the fog. The shadow steed laughed.
Forgetting the voice, Cabe returned to his own dire situation. Where the eternal had no qualms about the destruction of his adversaries, Cabe still felt pain every time he was forced to kill, even though most often it was in self-defense. He held back as much as he could, trying instead to dissuade or knock senseless the attackers. With his abilities suddenly once again in doubt, the warlock felt justified in resorting to flying rocks and tiny windstorms to beat back his opponents.
This did not mean that he was not forced to kill. Some of the Aramites could not be stopped any other way. They brought their own deaths by charging wildly into the storm of rocks. One reached close enough to almost pull Cabe from the saddle. Try as he might, the sorcerer could not free himsel
f and he discovered then that some Aramite weapons would hurt him regardless of his protective spells. The dagger that caught him slightly on the leg was bejeweled and also likely bewitched for just such a battle. Over their long history of war, it made sense that they would learn to deal with spellcasters. In the end, he had struck back out of sheer reflex . . . and had sent a jolt of energy so great in intensity that he had literally burned the man to death in less than a breath.
Still they kept coming. It was almost as if the entire raider force had found them.
“Unngh!” The blow against his head shook Cabe so hard he had to struggle to keep in the saddle. His first thought was that someone with a sling had caught him unaware, but his spell should have protected him regardless. When he heard Darkhorse grunt in pain, though, the warlock knew that it was no mundane weapon that had hurt him.
Where was it? None of the raiders he had sensed carried any such weapon. In truth, the greatest danger he and Darkhorse faced was likely not the Aramites, who only had sheer numbers on their side, but rather the malevolent fog, which continued to sap his will and play havoc with his magical abilities.
He kicked out at a swordsman who had somehow gotten past Darkhorse, then shocked the man before he could close the gap again. The Aramites were giving him little time to think. Even as the soldier fell twitching to the earth, Cabe himself was stung. Every bone in his body seemed to quiver. This time, the addled warlock slipped almost halfway off of his companion. It was only quick shifting on the demon steed’s part that kept Cabe from falling.
“Cabe! You must hold tight! I cannot fight and maintain your balance!”
“I . . . can’t.” It was painful just to straighten. He was almost flung off again when Darkhorse spun about to defend his right flank.
Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III Page 15