WoP - 02 - Istu Awakened

by Robert E. Vardeman

  Fost nodded, looking back down at the long file of Ethereals. Many straggled to one side or the other of the winding trail foraging for berries and edible roots. It was something the Ethereals were good at, and supplies had not yet become a problem.

  Nor did the straggling bother Fost. As long as none drifted out of sight, it mattered little whether the Ethereals marched in line or not. With only two of them to guard so large a flock, it was luck alone that had kept the varied wolves from taking more.

  'Why so downcast?' Synalon chided him. She flung out her arms and drew in a deep breath, causing her breasts to lift dramatically in the thin shirt. The nipples stood out in bold relief against the taut fabric, and he saw their ruddy color. 'It's a lovely day. The sun is high and hot and feels good on the skin, and the wind from the Ramparts still bears the chill of the Waste at its back to take the sting from the heat. And the flowers raise their heads all about, and their perfume fills the air. Aren't these pleasing to you, my Fost?'

  'I never thought I'd hear such sentiments from you.'

  The music of her laugh filled the air.

  'You've spent too much time with my dour sister. She's always striving after tomorrow. I am content to live with today, taking the sensations it gives me and enjoying them as best I can.' She looked at Ziore. 'Don't go all sour on me, little nun. I do lay plans against the future - aye, and hopes as well. But there are days when I immerse myself in the moment and revel in the million flavors of life.'

  'Then why did you ally yourself with the Dark Ones?' Fost asked before good sense could stop the words. 'They are the foes of life.'

  A shadow passed over her finely sculpted face like a cloud crossing the sun.

  'I thought they could give me power, and that power would open gates to new sensations. What must it be like to stride among the stars as Istu did? To know at once the chill and heat of the Void, to shout into airlessness and race the light of suns?' She sighed deeply. 'But you shall now hear something I seldom say. I was wrong. The Dark knows no bitterer foe than I now.'

  Does it? Fost wondered, remembering the dying firelight and the great black Dwarf beyond. But the perverse imp of defiance that made him blurt his question about Synalon's earlier pact with the Elder Lords had retreated, and he said nothing. Synalon loved him with a fiercely hot passion, physically at least, and he both feared and hoped that love extended to other dimensions. But she remained the mad, mercurial creature who had ruled the Sky City with a whim of steel and flame, and it wasn't safe to presume too far upon her good feelings.

  'Your philosophy is similar to what Erimenes now believes,' Ziore commented.

  'Ah, but I'm wiser than your Athalar sage, little sister,' Synalon cried, 'for I have long since learned that lesson and did not have to wait until I was dead.' Her hand shot out with a speed that reminded Fost of the Zr'gsz blood in her veins. She caught him by the wrist. She drew his scarred hand to her lips and kissed it gently. 'And now, my dear Fost, you shall learn why my way is wisest, to wring each moment dry of sensation without thought to the next.'

  'What?'

  'Look to the northern horizon, dear one.'

  He did. His heart dropped into the bottom of his belly.

  Like a fleet of ships upon the waves, they rode the air in a bobbing black line across the sky. Still too distant to be clearly seen, shimmering slightly in the waves of heat rising from the Steppe, the skyrafts grew even as Fost watched. Form and detail sharpened. His sword slid into his hand with a fluid motion.

  Synalon sent her mount stiff-legged down the face of the knoll, sliding and staggering amid a slippage of small, loose stones. Fost followed, hoping his dog wouldn't break a leg.

  Synalon called for the Ethereals to close up into a group.

  'No!' Fost shouted, and quailed as she turned a furious look on him. 'Have them scatter and hide the best they can. The Hissers are missile troops when they ride their rafts. If the Ethereals clump together, Zr'gsz darts will go through them like a sickle through ripe wheat.'

  Her dog reached the foot of the ridge and galloped toward where Selamyl still dragged himself inexorably forward with his cane. Fost's beast pounded after.

  She let him do the talking. He hurriedly outlined the danger to the Ethereals' leader, and what must be done. Selamyl smiled benignly.

  'Holding perfectly still is a thing my folk are good at,' he said. He turned and began speaking, gesturing into the scrub around them.

  One by one the Ethereals disappeared. Fost's eyes widened at the completeness with which they vanished. The Ethereals lacked wilderness craft but they could divorce their minds utterly from their bodies and drift among their dreams, immune to physical discomfort. Their bodies bent into unlikely shapes to take advantage of the sparse cover - and then they froze. In a matter of minutes, Fost saw only Selamyl. Then he, too, disappeared.

  'Impressive,' said Synalon. 'But remember the Zr'gsz are airborne. They'll hunt the Ethereals from a different perspective.'

  'But Oracle told me their eyesight is poor. Their eyes are attuned to movement rather than detail. If the Ethereals stay immobile, we have a chance.'

  'I think I can help,' Ziore said urgently. 'This close to Athalau my powers are greater, like Erimenes's. I cannot turn the Hissers away, but I can slow small numbers of them.'

  Anything that helped counteract the blindingly swift reflexes of the Vridzish would be of immeasurable aid.

  Synalon's eyes glowed beneath half-lowered lids. Her lips moved as she spoke to herself. Ziore shuddered and drew away from the sorceress. Fost felt a thrill as though his nerve ends were tightly brushed by powers beyond his ken.

  The rafts drew near, a score, two dozen. Fost's eyes unfocused. He blinked, realizing that there was a blurring of the line of dark stone rafts. A Hisser, highborn from his size and green cuirass, pointed and shouted a sibilant command. The formation split to avoid the disturbance, some going around, others up and over.

  The air darkened, swirled, coalesced. A winged shape hung in air, a tiger's head swiveling at the end of a long snake's neck. At least six legs dangled from the bloated body. Fost couldn't be sure because the thing swam in and out of focus.

  As the leading raft passed overhead, the thing half rolled, drumming the air with its wings. A claw shot up, up to and through the underside of the raft. The pilot hunched over the globe at the rear suddenly gave a ringing shriek. The claw drew down pulling the Hisser's smoking guts with it through the skystone. 'Great Ultimate,' Fost whispered.

  'I think you've seen this magic before. Back in the tower of Kest-i-Mond.'

  He recalled the striped ape monster, blinded by a deathbolt that failed to save the enchanter who cast it, and the nightmare chase it had given him through the corridors of the sorceror's keep. Fost's blade had passed harmlessly through it, and it flowed through solid walls and doorways as though they were air. Only by luring it into an open fumarole Kest-i-Mond had built his castle over had Fost avoided death. Synalon's magic now was identical with that he'd faced - and barely triumphed over.

  Slung stones and javelins sleeted down at the winged creature. They passed through it like smoke. Clawed limbs lashed out again and again. The monster delighted in eviscerating Zr'gsz and tearing out hearts to fling them in the faces of its foes.

  'They'll never get past that horror,' said Fost. Relief almost overwhelmed his dread of the monster.

  Synalon frowned. A spot of darkness appeared in the air beside the winged beast, grew. The tiger-headed thing saw it, struck at it with a claw. The beast's arm disappeared. The black hole caught the arm and drew the monster in. It uttered a wail that raked down Fost's spine. Then it was gone. The hole winked out of existence.

  Synalon's hair crackled with sparks.

  'Damn! They've a mage with them who draws on Istu's power.'

  As she spoke, a beam of black light lanced down at her. She gestured contemptuously. It bent abruptly to dig a smoking rent in the ground.

  'Even with the Demon's help he has
no touch for offensive magic,' Synalon sneered. 'But I fear he can negate any spells I attack with.'

  'Is Istu near?' asked Fost, peering all around.

  'No, but his power can augment that of any he favors. I myself sought to tap the power of his sleeping mind - as you may recall.'

  He had a fleeting urge to strike her. He remembered too well. She had planned to sacrifice Moriana to the sleeping Demon as a bribe for his assistance. Fost had barely rescued the golden-haired princess.

  Synalon's hands moved, weaving a new spell. A crack opened in the earth below the skyfleet. A billion black hornets billowed forth to surround the rafts. Stoic as they were, the Hissers began to scream and fling themselves over the edges of their vessels to escape the maddening stings.

  Fost couldn't see the enemy sorceror. But he must have acted because the swarm became a cloud of tiny sparks burning unbearably bright, falling to the Steppe in an incandescent rain.

  The rafts were almost overhead. Arrows began to pelt the landscape, javelins and stones striking with thumps like hail. Synalon's lips drew back taut.

  'They know what we're doing. They're trying to slay the Ethereals.'

  'They're shooting blind,' Fost said. Evidently the Vridzish had spotted the Ethereals at a distance and knew they were near, but couldn't pinpoint them. With their eerie self-control, many of the Ethereals died without a sound, without stirring.

  The rafts came close enough to speed missiles at the mounted pair. Fost steeled himself. He had no shield and his mail vest would provide little protection against hard-driven arrows.

  Synalon waved her hand. The barrage of missiles dropped, arrows and javelins aflame, the stones molten lumps.

  'Had they enough archers they could swamp me,' she said. 'But they don't.'

  The skyrafts veered off, milling aimlessly in the sky. Fost awaited a new spell from Synalon. None came.

  'I do what their mage does,' she explained. 'I conserve strength.'

  The rafts spread out, formed a circle around the two and touched down. The craft each held six to eight Vridzish. Six to eight too many for Fost's liking.

  The Hissers rushed forth, the nobles splendid in their cloaks and armor, the paler scaled lowborn warriors clad in loincloths and carrying obsidian spears and axes. Some of the latter carried short-swords of plain steel looted from a human armory. Oracle had predicted this would happen. Obsidian held a keener edge than steel but it was brittle. As Vridzish weapons were broken or lost, they had to be replaced. Picking up fallen human weapons proved easier than chipping new ones from glass.

  It was small comfort. Two of the shortsword-armed Hissers stopped and hauled an Ethereal woman to her feet. Her face never lost its dreamy look as they plunged their swords repeatedly into her body.

  Synalon pointed three times with her finger. Three lines of blue lightning stabbed forth. The two slayers and an officer nearby charred and fell. Synalon laughed delightedly at her handiwork. 'The whoreson can't guard against that!'

  The Vridzish commander shouted and waved his sword. The Hissers advanced on Fost and Synalon at a trot. Both dismounted, preparing for battle.

  Lightning flared in such rapid succession that Fost was momentarily deafened and blinded. But if the Zr'gsz mage couldn't fend off her deadly short range lightning, neither had Synalon speed or strength to cinder all their enemies before they reached the embattled pair.

  Instinct made him lash out even before his vision cleared. Fost felt his blade slash through something brittle; then came the unmistakable sensation of steel cleaving flesh. A Hisser gasped and fell, the broken halves of a mace dropping to the Steppe.

  A score of the reptiles surrounded the pair. Fost's dog snarled and leaped, taking a deep gash down one side but bearing two of them to the ground. A trio of lowborn Hissers closed on Fost. His eyes searched rapidly and found a small stone lying near his foot. He kicked it between two of the Vridzish.

  They were stupid. Their eyes followed the rock and then not even their inhuman speed saved them from Fost's whining blade. He swung left, right, left again and black blood gushed over him.

  A noble loomed up ahead swinging an obsidian-edged sword. Fost hurled himself backward. The black stone blade moaned past. Fost felt nothing but as he backpedalled he saw that his tunic was parted in a line running across his chest and blood welled through a sleeve.

  Synalon glided forward, her rapier twitching before her like a giant insect's antenna. She attacked the officer, and he retreated a step. Steel rang on stone, and then the tip of the slender sword whipped around a parry to score a heavily muscled forearm.

  The Zr'gsz whistled in rage and struck, battling Synalon's blade out of the way. She danced back. He smiled then, teeth bright in his dark face, and advanced.

  As quickly as he had advanced, he stopped. His eyes rolled up in his head showing greenish white balls. He stiffened. Every muscle swelled into relief on his powerful body, and he began vibrating in the grip of an awful spasm. A keening sounded only to be drowned in a froth of blood. He fell, kicking grooves in the soil. He finally lay still.

  'My sword skill's too paltry to put all my faith in it,' Synalon said from behind Fost. 'Come on then, bastards. My venom's good for many more!'

  And they did come on, barely giving Fost time to clamber to his feet. He and Synalon fought back to back as the Vridzish rushed. It seemed that each new attack must be the last; Fost didn't know how he parried the blinding strokes of mace and axe and sword. The Zr'gsz crowded in on all sides, jostling each other, making it difficult to attack. Fost buried his sword over and over until he was black with their blood. Synalon's poisonous sting littered the ground with convulsing victims. But there were too many Hissers, and beyond the circle of hard, dark faces Fost saw several score others still hunting down the Ethereals.

  His face and arms stung from myriad shallow cuts. He dared not even glance over his shoulder at Synalon, but from her constant low-voiced cursing he guessed she was in no better shape.

  He refused to have it end like this. The thought of dying filled him with rage.

  'O, Ust!' he bellowed. 'Give me the strength to slay these sons of darkness!' Madness came on him, and he waded in among the Vridzish.

  He scattered a dozen of the lower caste warriors. Another officer faced him. His speed outmatched Fost's berserker fury. Each stroke of his mace drove Fost's blade perilously near the man's own flesh. Sweat blinded Fost.

  Then the noble's head departed its shoulders atop a column of blood.

  'Again I greet you, O Chosen of Ust,' said Jennas, hetwoman of the bear clan, as she flicked black blood from the six-foot blade on her greatsword. 'This is getting to be a habit,' she added in a quieter voice.

  The timely arrival of the Ust-alayakits threw the Zr'gsz into confusion. Jennas wheeled her bear Chubchuk away and launched herself against their common foe. The long hair and body fat of the bears provided excellent armor; the beasts absorbed savage blows without harm. Fost saw the plumed Zr'gsz captain fell a male bear rider only to have another rider roll down on him like an avalanche. The rider was a grossly fat woman with a steel cap strapped atop wiry red curls. The Hisser threw up his shining green blade. A giant axe swept down with all the force of that huge body. The green sword snapped. The axehead hurled on. Through gorgeous plume, through green helmet, through skull and body until it sank into the cold ground of the Steppe. The Zr'gsz was sheared in two, the halves quivering over dead legs for a second before falling in separate directions.

  The Hissers ran for their rafts. The fat woman laughed and threw her giant axe into the air. It cartwheeled up until it was outlined against the swollen disk of the setting sun. Then it returned, a huge hand snared it and the battle was done.

  Flames danced high against the nighttime sky. Drunken and boisterous, the bear riders staggered in a victory dance around the bonfire.

  Fost sat with Jennas and the monstrous redheaded woman, Vancha Broad-Ax. Her great axe, Little Sister, was laid carefully on the ground
by her huge rump where she patted it from time to time and crooned appreciatively to it. The Bear folk still talked about the way she'd struck down the Zr'gsz noble that afternoon. Fost had never seen anything like it, and to judge from the talk of the Ust-alayakits, neither had they.

  'I had the proper motivation,' Vancha boomed in a voice as big as she was. 'Ust has kept little Jennas appraised of what goes on in the world north of our Steppe, by means of visions.' She laid a companionly slab of arm across 'little Jennas's' shoulders, who was every bit as tall as Fost and just as powerful. The hetwoman smiled, but her amber eyes were troubled.

  'It's good to see you again, Fost,' the hetwoman said as Vancha poured herself a fresh mug of rakshak, the liquid fire that these nomads drank. 'It is as Ust foretold.' She looked away quickly.

  Fost felt a tingling and glanced over his shoulder. Synalon sat away from the fire on a saddle taken from the corpse of Fost's dog. Her arms were folded beneath her breasts, and she regarded the courier with sullen, smouldering eyes. He bit his lip and turned away.

  When the Vridzish had fled, Synalon had seized him and hugged him tight. Her lips had sought his; the slaying had aroused passions in her that wouldn't be put off. Yet he had shrugged her off to share a tearful embrace with Jennas. Only when he had literally felt Synalon's gaze laid across his back like a whip had he turned from Jennas to see the anger and hurt glowing in Synalon's eyes.

  Though Synalon drank nothing, she had grown more sullen since the sun fell from the sky. When a young bravo had swaggered up and tried to put his arm around her, she had given him a glare charged with more than anger. He cried out in a high-pitched voice and fled, stumbling and falling into the fire and being badly singed before his fellows dragged him out. The bear riders were of a rough humor and thought this a capital joke. Fost read darker implications in it.

  'So you're herding these two-legged sheep to Athalau' Vancha said, her immense paw settling on his arm. She nodded toward the Ethereals, who sat like so many pallid statues. Silently Fost counted the unmoving figures. They didn't number one hundred. There was only one way of learning if they would be enough for the dangerous task ahead of them.