by David Drake
"The owner," Protas said. "The owner caught you."
"How can someone own a thing that was old before men and which had no value to the possessor?" Antesiodorus said, his voice cracking. "It wasn't his, it was just a thing he had! And he didn't catch me, no."
He looked back at Cashel, not Protas, and said, "He didn't catch me then, because I left the piece with my brethren, the members of my sodality, and fled while they examined the plaque. They were delighted, you see; they couldn't praise me enough. We were sworn to support one another in all ways, and they all spoke of what a valued brother I was. They didn't know."
"You saved yourself by setting a demon on your friends," Protas said. There was nothing at all in the boy's tone, just the words. It was as though all the feeling had been shocked out of him.
"No!" Antesiodorus said. He laughed brokenly. "Or perhaps yes, if you look only at the surface. It wasn't a demon, it was much worse than that. And they weren't my friends; they were brothers of my oath, but not friends."
"And you didn't escape," said Cashel. "It caught you anyway, and you serve it now."
"You think you're so smart!" the guide shouted.
"No," said Cashel. "I don't. I'm not."
"I think perhaps you're wrong, my simple friend," Antesiodorus said in a broken voice. "You're too smart to find yourself in my situation, at any rate. Now that I've had time to think about it, I believe the way the jade was broken and scattered was a trap for… someone like me. Someone who liked to find things. I've had a great deal of time to think about it, as you'll appreciate."
"Sir?" said Cashel formally. "Look to the north, please. On the little ridge there. They've been looking at us ever since the cattle started to move."
The things watching them had risen into sight. They looked like dogs but they were the size of horses, and they had the huge crinkled ears of bats. There were five of them, one for each finger on a single hand.
"Oh," said Antesiodorus. He kept walking but he stumbled on a tussock of grass and almost fell, slight though it was. "Oh. Oh."
He took a deep breath. "One moment, please," he said, kneeling on the prairie and opening out his bindle before him. "I'd thought that by going by daylight we'd avoid at least them, but it seems that I was wrong. Wrong again."
The bat-eared dogs were ambling down the hill, spreading out slightly as they advanced. They were a pale color like mushrooms that grow in a cave; what Cashel'd thought when he first saw them were stripes seemed now to be wrinkles on their bare skin.
Antesiodorus rose, clutching his bindle under his left arm. He had a book open in that hand with his thumb marking a place. "Come along!" he said. "Don't run, but keep moving steadily."
Cashel began to spin his quarterstaff as he walked. It worked his torso muscles and, well, it made him feel more comfortable.
He wasn't afraid of a fight, but the dogs were big and there were five of them. It would be hard to keep Protas safe, and that was what he was along to do.
Cashel smiled a little. If things went the way he expected them to, he wouldn't be around for anybody to complain to. Still, he'd give the dogs a good fight.
As the beasts walked on, a little faster now, their mouths dropped open into clown smiles. They had long, pointy teeth like snakes did, and their lolling tongues were forked.
"Go on ahead of me now," said Antesiodorus, drawing the sea lily from his sash; he must use it for a wand. He focused on the book in his hand, then called, "Dode akrouro akete!" and slashed the sea lily down.
Scarlet wizardlight danced and crackled across the prairie. Nettles and thistles rose, spread, and interlocked, growing into a hedge as dense and high as a range of mountains. The ground shook and there was a roar like cliffs falling into the sea.
Antesiodorus staggered backward, dropping the book and the bindle but continuing to grip his wand. "Come along," he whispered. Then, more strongly, "Come!"
He bent to pick up the bindle. Cashel took it and the book instead and handed them to Protas to carry.
"Yes, all right," said the scholar. "But come."
They set off at a shambling trot. Cashel would've offered to carry Antesiodorus if he hadn't thought it was better that he keep both hands on his quarterstaff. The scholar did all right, though, after the first few strides where he wobbled like a drunk on an icy road.
Cashel glanced over his shoulder. The high thorn hedge ran from horizon to horizon without a break. Antesiodorus'd said he wasa a scholar who wasn't interested in wizardry. Cashel'd thought that meant he was like Tenoctris: somebody smart and who knew a lot of things, but who wasn't strong enough to do much.
The fellow who'd raised that hedge with a stroke and a short spell was a powerful wizard, no mistake. That meant whoever had Antesiodorus by the short hairs was more powerful still.
A mixed herd of animals was running southward. Cashel could see horses and deer and more of the funny long-necked camels, but there were other things besides. It was like the way a grass fire drives animals.
Cashel grinned as he jogged. He'd met plenty of people who'd rather face a fire than wizardry. Even if neither one was aimed at you, they were likely uncomfortable to be around.
They were moving toward the tall white peak on the horizon. Cashel knew enough about distances under a sky like this to be sure that the mountain was days away and maybe weeks. Antesiodorus had said it'd only take a couple hours to get to where they were going. If they made it at all, that was.
Cashel looked back again. To his surprise he saw two of the dogs already on their trail again; the other three were squirming the final bit of the way through the thorns. They'd done it by brute strength, not wizardry: the leading dog had scratches on its bunched shoulders and it'd torn the lobe of its right ear to tatters, but it loped along easily. It had a tail like a pig's, short and curled and pointed toward the sky.
"They're coming again," Cashel said. He wasn't talking because he was afraid: he just wanted to let Antesiodorus know what was going on.
Protas looked over his shoulder. His mouth fell open and he stumbled, but he just turned around again and kept on running. He was really a good boy.
"It's not far," Antesiodorus said. He was gasping; Cashel thought he'd have shouted if he'd had enough breath. "Not far."
"Sir, neither's the dogs!" Cashel said. In another few strides-a couple double handfuls at the most-he was going to turn and see what he could do with the quarterstaff. He'd be willing to give himself even odds against the first dog, but the second wasn't but a few lengths behind it. If the other three caught up-and they would, no doubt about that-it was just a question of whether they worried his body for a while or killed him quick and went on to finish the others.
"Why me!" Antesiodorus said. This time he did manage to shout. He added in a gasp, "Pass me my equipment, boy. And in a moment we'll stop."
Protas trotted up alongside the scholar, holding the bindle out in both hands. Cashel for his part dropped back a little, moving to the side so that he could have both his companions and the dogs at the edge of his vision.
The lead dog ran a funny way, its hindquarters not quite tracking its forequarters so its body was slightly skewed. It seemed comfortable like that, and it didn't have to stretch to gain on its human prey. Its eyes were small and glittered like an angry shoat's.
"We're stopping!" the scholar wheezed.
Cashel slowed and turned. He'd planned to put himself well in front and squarely between the nearest dog and his companions, but that animal angled to its left while the one behind it was slanting right. They'd done this before…
Ofcourse they'd done it before. They hadn't gotten that big sucking at their mother's dugs.
Cashel backed so he was close enough to touch his companions, bad for a fight but his only chance to maybe keep one of the beasts from slipping behind to gobble up Protas and the scholar while the other was keeping Cashel busy.
And then there were three more.
Antesiodorus scattered the contents
of a little alabaster box in a broad arc toward the dogs. It looked like sand, but it might've been tiny jewels for all Cashel knew. Even if it was sand, it wouldn't have been just sand. He pointed the sea lily at it and shouted, "Io gegegegen!"
This time the flash of wizardlight was as blue as a sapphire in bright sun. The roar and shudder threw Cashel off his feet though he'd thought he was ready to ride it out. Dust rose in a great pall, curling backward blindingly.
Cashel stood, his eyes slitted. He put his left arm over his face so that he could breathe through the sleeve.
For a moment he couldn't tell what was happening on the other side of the dust cloud, but at least there wasn't a dog bigger'n a horse lumbering through with its mouth open. He risked a glance back. Antesiodorus was slumped in a sitting position with Protas bracing him so he didn't fall flat.
The dust cleared a little, enough for Cashel to see that what'd been rolling plain between them and their pursuers was now a gaping chasm. Two of the dogs had reached the edge on their side. One hunched like it was getting ready to jump.
Cashel walked a few paces along his side of the gap to put himself where the dog would land if it made the leap. That didn't seem likely, though he wasn't taking any chances. The sudden gully was wider than he could toss a stone across; wider, he thought, than an archer could shoot and expect to hit a particular target, though he didn't doubt an arrow could fly to the other side if you didn't have anything in mind but sticking it somewhere in the ground there.
The dog must've had the same thought; it relaxed for a moment. The rest of the pack joined the two leaders. All together they went over the lip of the chasm, each scraping out a trail of dirt and pebbles in a high roostertail behind it. The wall was steep but not quite sheer, and the dogs didn't seem to be having any trouble with the slide.
Coming back up the other side would be a lot harder, but Cashel didn't figure they'd have started down if they didn't think they could make it up too. Given how big they were the dogs didn't have much of a turn of speed, but nobody could teach them anything about determination.
Antesiodorus had staggered to his feet; the boy did everything his little body could to help. The scholar muttered something; somehow he was still hanging onto the sea lily.
Protas turned to Cashel and called desperately, "He says to come on! It's close, he says!"
Cashel scooped Antesiodorus up in the crook of his left arm. "Bring the bindle!" he said. It'd take some time for the dogs to make it up the near side of the chasm; from the look of the scholar it'd be longer yet before he was able to walk on his own legs, let alone run.
Cashel didn't have a direction except the general one, toward the distant mountain, so he followed that. He held the staff out to his right side so it'd balance the scholar's weight. He didn't like to run and he wasn't good at it, but he could lumber along the way an ox did when unyoked after a long day and scenting water.
It was there in front of them, a square slab of granite flush with the ground. You had to be right on top of the stone to see it, and even then it was because there wasn't grass growing on it. A figure with more angles than a hand had fingers was carved onto the surface.
"Get on the heptagram!" Antesiodorus said. His breath was whooping in and out. "Please. Please, quickly."
Cashel placed himself in the figure and hugged Protas close; it was a tight fit for the two of them to stay inside the lines, which he figured they'd better do. But "Master Antesiodorus?" he called. "What about you?"
The scholar pointed his wand at the stone slab. "Choi…," he said. "Chooi chareamon…"
Blue light glittered briefly among the knotted arms of the sea lily. Protas had dropped the bindle before he stepped onto the marked stone, but Antesiodorus ignored it. The roll'd opened when it hit the ground, spilling a zebrawood baton and a pair of scrolls tied with red ribbon.
"Iao iboea…," Antesiodorus said. Again wizardlight, this time scarlet, danced on his wand. He was speaking the words of power from memory instead of reading them from one of the books he'd brought. His face was set in an expression of utter determination.
The head of one of the great dogs lifted above the rim of the chasm. It slipped back in a fresh cloud of dust and gravel kicked out by the beast's scrabbling claws, but two more dogs got their forepaws over the edge and bunched their shoulders to leap onto the plain.
"Sir!" Cashel shouted. "The dogs!"
"Ithuao!" Antesiodorus shouted. The dogs lurched up, got their hind legs under them, and galloped forward. Their slavering jaws were open.
Light, blue and red and then merging to purple, flared on the many-pointed symbol. Cashel felt the stone give way beneath him in a fashion that'd become familiar.
"I kept my oath!" Antesiodorus called as the dogs lunged.
The curtain of purple light thickened, blocking sight of the world Cashel was leaving with the boy. He heard the scholar's voice crying, "This time I kept my-"
The words ended in a scream, or perhaps that was only the howl of the cosmos as it whipped Cashel away in a descending spiral.
Chapter 14
Lord Attaper sloshed toward Sharina. The Blood Eagles who'd been with him-all those but the section with Sharina and Tenoctris-followed in a ragged wave.
"Ascor, you idiot!" he shouted in a voice loud enough to be audible over the general tumult. "Get her highness out of here! What are you standing around for?"
Attaper'd compromised between his duty and the desire of a warrior to be part of the battle instead of standing out of it as an observer: he'd placed the hundred or so men of the bodyguard regiment in the earthworks directly between the ridge where Princess Sharina stood and the direction of the hellplants' attack. At the time, of course, he'd assumed that her highness would be able to flee if the struggle went badly…
"No!" Sharina said-to Ascor, but then turning to Attaper she cried, "Milord, we have to defend Lady Tenoctris! She's our only hope!"
The guard commander probably couldn't hear her, but Ascor did. He hesitated. His orders came from Attaper, not from a princess who, though exalted, wasn't in his chain of command.
Sharina wasn't sure what Ascor would've decided if he'd made up his own mind, but Trooper Lires chuckled and said, "Don't you worry, Princess. The captain remembers how you'n Lady Tenoctris saved things back in Valles. He got promoted that time, and I guess maybe they'll make him deputy commander this time, hey cap'n?"
"That's if we survive, Lires," Ascor said in a taut voice. With a smile almost as sharp as his words he added, "Which I doubt we'll do, but you're right-I doubted it in Valles too."
Double had fallen with everyone else when the hills flattened. He got up slowly, as though he had to consider each separate movement, then staggered to his box of equipment. It lay on its side, half sunken in the mud.
The two trumpeters with Lord Waldron blew the quick, ringing notes of Stand To, halting the retreat. The cornicenes took it up, then signallers throughout the army. The soldiers Sharina could see-she didn't have the vantage point of the ridge to look down from-slowed and looked behind them, milling in indecision.
Lires chuckled. "Look at 'em," he said. "It's a bloody good thing that it's all gone to muck underfoot, ain't it, cap'n?"
Sharina looked from the trooper to Ascor in surprise. She'd heard all the words, but they didn't mean anything to her.
"Your highness," Ascor said, looking out at the advancing hellplants. "If the ground was firm, well…"
He shrugged. "Nothing against the line regiments, your highness," he continued, "but once troops start to run, it's next to impossible to turn them. Even good troops."
Lires stamped. His boot slurped ankle-deep in mud. "They couldn't get to running in this, you see?" he said. "Nothing to do but stand the way the trumpets tell'em to do."
Attaper was within ten yards, slogging on in silent fury. He'd widened the gap between himself and the soldiers who'd been with him, even though most of them were younger than he was. In the morning, if Attaper lived th
at long, he'd be in agony with pulled muscles in his thighs, but he didn't allow pain or the mud stop him now.
Thinking of what she was going to tell the commander made Sharina look back at Tenoctris. The old wizard continued to chant within the fence of soldiers' legs. How long will it take to -
With a sudden convulsive movement, Tenoctris stabbed her bamboo split into the center of the scooped basin in front of her. She cried, "Sabaoth!"
The air sparkled faintly blue. The water in the basin froze.
Ice spread outward in jagged curves from the basin, crackling and forming a white rind over the marsh. The soldiers guarding Tenoctris were taken by surprise. They leaped up and stamped, breaking their boots free of frozen mud.
Sharina saw the ice sweeping toward her. She tried to jump over the oncoming change, but she hadn't allowed for her fatigue. She stumbled forward and felt the mud congeal about her feet as the broad swathe slid past her and on. It left the rime behind it gleaming like a slug's track.
She tried to pull free, twisting against the soil's cold grip. Lires drove the butt of his spear into the ground beside her left foot, smashing the thick crust and allowing her to lift her feet out of it.
All around Sharina soldiers shouted in fear and amazement. As Tenoctris' spell spread outward, its effect speeded up. The soil froze to the edge of the bay, turning windblown foam into a coating of rime.
Men hopped up and down, freeing themselves, but the hellplants stopped where they were as if suddenly rooted to the ground. Their tentacles moved sluggishly, no faster than the blooms of the heliotrope following the circuit of the sun. Plants don't like cold any better than they like darkness…
"Lord Attaper!" Sharina said as the guard commander struggled to her side. "Now's the time to attack, while we can move and the plants cannot. Can you give the signal?"
Attaper looked first shocked, then puzzled. Then the meaning behind the words dragged his mind out of the set, angry rut in which it'd been running and he saw that she was right.