by Mark E Lacy
Enkinor's horse shied, but he grabbed its reins and flung himself onto its back. Without a backward glance, he yanked the reins, dug his heels in hard, and galloped through the smoking gate.
On top of a nearby house, hidden by the shadows, a relieved and weary irrilai wiped his brow, stomped out his punt stick, and disappeared.
Chapter 11
Kophid lay half-asleep a mile or two behind as the resara and the Saerani galloped across farms and pastures and into the hills, shunning the roads. Strigin led the way, spurring his horse on, for the forests were close at hand. The men spoke little, heads bent close to the wind-whipped manes of their mounts.
When they reached the trees, the fleeing men dismounted and sent the horses off with slaps on their flanks. Strigin and Enkinor merged with the woods and stopped to catch their breath.
Enkinor looked at the aging resara. The man's piercing gaze spoke of inner strength, his stance of self-assurance.
“I'm glad you made it out of Kophid,” said the old man.
“My name is Enkinor,” said the Saerani, extending his hand.
“And I am Strigin,” said the other, clasping Enkinor's hand in his own. “Our friend the irrilai told me about you. He said you were looking for a resara.”
“Yes, I am. Longhorn told me about you, as well. But how do I know you are truly a resara?”
“You don't. Whatever it is you want, you must trust me. We have very little time.”
Enkinor hesitated. His grandfather had told him to find the resari if he needed help. There was no time to build any more trust than what they had built by escaping Kophid together.
“The one who gave me these said I should seek the resari.” Enkinor showed Strigin his Gauntleted hands, pointing out the black leather on the backs and the cuffs, the brown leather on the palms.
The resara squinted. Then, his eyes grew wide with wonder. “It is true. Our Reading was correct. How did these come to you?”
“My grandfather passed them on to me,” said Enkinor, and Strigin began to nod, as if he already knew the rest. “He told me that if I ever needed help, I should find the resari. Can you help me?”
Strigin scrutinized Enkinor for several moments. “Are you irrilai?”
“No, I'm Saerani. Why?”
The resara rubbed the stubble on his chin. “We expected to find the Gauntlets on the hands of an irrilai. But, no matter. What you have there are sometimes called 'the Paws of the Bear.'”
“Paws?” said Enkinor.
The older man nodded. “They are passed down from grandfather to grandson, as your grandfather did to you. You could not possess — you will never possess — anything more important.”
The Saerani studied at the Gauntlets, turning them over in his hands. “What can you tell me?” he said, looking up. “Is there some power to these?”
“For people like you and me? Protection from sorcery,” replied Strigin. “Yes, yes, I know, that is no small advantage. But on the hands of a sorcerer, they would bestow great knowledge and power. Far more power than anyone alive should be tempted to use. The Gauntlets must be guarded well, for many sorcerers would use any means to obtain them, despite the Ban of Irsisri.”
“Go on,” said Enkinor.
“Back in the time of Helsinlae, King of Thrae, the resari met at Irsisri. Indrelfis — a mysterious woman with an unusual range of powers — had found the Gauntlets some time before. It was she who brought the resari together. They knew of the Gauntlets, as did the abramusari, the sorcerers. Yet no one knew who had fashioned them or why. They also knew the Gauntlets could multiply the powers of a sorcerer as well as protect ordinary people from sorcery.
“At Irsisri, at the suggestion of Indrelfis, the resari established a Ban prohibiting the sorcerers from possessing the Gauntlets. Any musara who attempted to break the Ban would be punished, said Indrelfis. But she never said how, she said to leave it to her. Many wondered what would happen after she died. Yet such was her presence, her grip on people, that they all trusted her and agreed to let her be guardian of the Gauntlets.”
Enkinor pulled the cuff of one Gauntlet down, showing the resara a purpling bruise. “He couldn’t pull them off my hands, so he tried to cut my hand off, but his blade broke.”
Strigin knitted his eyebrows. “A spell to keep them from being taken by force? We never knew of that.” The resara shook his head. “My friend, we are in great danger. Raethir Del will not stop until he has found some way to take the Gauntlets. And you must not allow him to get them. With the Gauntlets on his hands, Raethir Del would not only destroy the resari, he would kill every abramusara he could find. With no one to stop him, he would soon enslave every man, woman, and child.”
“Can't we destroy them? Let me build a fire, and we'll soon have nothing more to worry about.”
“No. The Gauntlets, and you as their bearer, have a destiny to fulfill. You must not destroy them.”
“How do you know this?” said the Saerani, taken aback.
“The resari 'foresee'. Or perhaps more accurately, foresense. We do not see the details. We sense the coming importance of the Gauntlets. And we also sense the coming of great evil on the part of Raethir Del.”
Indistinguishable forms, heading in their direction, drew their attention back to the dark city. As the red light of dawn reflected off uniforms, Strigin grabbed the Saerani by the arm. A dozen figures were fanning out over the countryside.
“Those are mounted guards, Enkinor. With leashed umars.”
Enkinor placed the nobleman's dagger in Strigin's hand. The two turned and ran into the dark brush, dodging barren trees and jumping small rivulets of ice-cold water. Branches and briars lashed like whips as the men fought to put more distance between themselves and the umars. A misjudged leap over a rock sent Enkinor sprawling, and Strigin paused, panting, hands on his knees. They wiped the sweat from their eyes and ran on, wading through carpets of dead leaves, scrambling on their hands and knees up steep climbs.
Strigin led the way but was soon overcome with fatigue. Despite his good health, his endurance was no match for that of the youthful Saerani. The resara made a valiant attempt to get Enkinor to go on and leave him behind, but the Saerani refused and forced the resara to move on again, though at a slower pace.
“Where are we going, Strigin?” Enkinor eased his sword in its scabbard. Rather than confusing their pursuers by leaving a meandering trail for them to follow, Strigin seemed to be leading the Saerani on a direct path to some goal.
The resara wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “A place to hide for a while. A cave, beneath a waterfall. We will be safe there.”
Autumn was leaving, winter approaching, and the fierce wind had torn the leaves from the trees, piling them up against uncaring obstacles. The red-orange orb of the rising sun played its light between the sleeping trees, splashing the forest floor and a path leading down a hill. The path was seldom traveled. Lifeless leaves covered the trodden dirt trail as it wound between boulders and trees and took advantage of less steep grades.
Enkinor and Strigin came over the crest and bounded down the trail, taking care to avoid tripping on roots snaking across their path. Farther down the hill, their route merged with a spring-fed stream plunging down a gully. Soon, the two fugitives were sipping the icy water and catching their breath once more.
“Stay here,” said Enkinor. “Rest up. I'm going back up to look around.”
He crept back up to the top of the hill. How much time? Probably very little.
But there was no time at all. As Enkinor crouched and peered over the crest, the Braemyans released their umars. Enkinor drew his sword and raised its point just in time to impale the first umar as it bounded over the hill with a feline scream. The dead umar threw Enkinor to the ground and tumbled over him. He rolled and tugged his sword free from the giant cat. The next umar lunged and missed, then lay low to the ground, snarling and circling its prey.
The Braemyans struggled to hold th
e two remaining umars. Enkinor watched with dismay as one of the beasts was dispatched down the hill. The Saerani sentara muttered a prayer to Eloeth; Strigin had only the nobleman's dagger.
The other umar was released to join the one now circling Enkinor. The Braemyans had drawn their swords but maintained a safe distance.
“Sslissakk! Skree! Skree!” they shouted to the umars.
Enkinor knelt. For a moment, he tilted his head back, exposing his throat, tempting the umar. As the great black hulk sprang, Enkinor dipped his sword in a swift stroke that slit the throat of the umar from one side to the other. Blood sprayed across the forest floor. The other umar backed off a bit, the smell of feline blood causing him to hesitate. The Saerani tribesman faced the great cat, while the Braemyans began to move up behind him. Enkinor feinted a stroke at the umar and whirled in time to block the downstroke of a Braemyan sword. With a grunt, he thrust his own blade through the man's ribs.
A human scream pierced the morning air at the bottom of the hill.
The remaining Braemyan flew into a frenzy of movement, his sword creating a shield of steel about him, pushing Enkinor down the path.
“Skree!” he shouted at the last umar. “Skree!”
Being below the enemy guard, the Saerani had the advantage. The Braemyan could not swing his shorter sword low enough and the blade whooshed over Enkinor's head. Enkinor parried a low stroke. On the back-swing, he delivered a skull-crushing blow to the face of the attacking umar that thought it had seen the chance for which it had been trained.
The Saerani pretended to turn and run down the trail. The pursuing Braemyan tripped on a root, fell, and rolled, his sword disappearing in the underbrush. Before he could get up and retrieve the weapon, Enkinor jumped the Braemyan and ran him through.
The sentara wiped the sweat from his eyes and looked below. The one remaining umar was standing over Strigin's dead body, making tearing motions at the man's throat.
With a yell of desperation, fighting nausea, Enkinor ran down the hill. He grabbed Strigin's dagger where the resara had dropped it and threw himself onto the cat. Berserk with rage and grief, the Saerani cut the beast's throat and plunged the blade over and over into its chest. When at last the umar quivered and then stilled, Enkinor stumbled to the creek, panting, and washed off the sweat and the blood.
The resara was dead.
Stronger than ever before, a rising desire for revenge came over Enkinor. He looked at the dead man and saw his hopes for knowledge, for answers, drift away like a foggy breath on a cold morning. He saw a man who could have become a trusted friend. And he saw also Rigalen and all the others who had died because of Raethir Del.
Strigin would share no more. Enkinor would have to find another resara.
After a few minutes, his rage began to fade, despair fighting to take its place. He wiped his sword clean and sheathed it, looked around, and tried to decide what to do next.
The forest was unnaturally quiet. Wisps of black and brown marked the brightening sky. Squawking crows shattered the silence and took to the air in a panic. Enkinor imagined he could hear a crackling sound like people walking on dead leaves. Then, he smelled it.
Fire.
The flames began by cutting off the way he had come. The fire raced and spread across the top of each hill, forming a half-circle above him. A twinge of fear ran up Enkinor's spine. The fire was not spreading up the hills like any normal fire. It was moving downhill.
Enkinor jumped the stream and followed the trail for a few yards up the next hill. He stopped and whispered a prayer. The flames were only a hundred yards ahead and racing toward him at a speed faster than a man could walk. His eyes searched the hillsides in vain, for there were no caves in which to burrow and escape the flames, no cave that might be Strigin's. The fire left him with a single course of action: follow the water and hope to find Strigin's cave or some other shelter. Enkinor ran down the stream bed, splashing, slipping on the stones.
More streams joined the one Enkinor was following, making it increasingly difficult to keep his balance. Soon, he could hear a roar above the crackle of the approaching flames. The current grew swifter, the stream bed rockier, and Enkinor was forced to return to the bank.
Farther downstream, the roar he heard grew in intensity. Enkinor climbed an outcropping of boulders and looked out over a tree-lined gorge. The stream he had been following spilled over a rocky shelf and plunged into a pool, forty yards below.
The fire at his back pressed him with a wall of heat and smoke. Enkinor made sure his scabbard was secure across his back. Lacking another route of escape, he began climbing down the bluff to the bottom of the falls. The rocks close to the cascade were too wet and slick for good handholds, so he stayed farther to one side and made use of the few roots and stumps he could find. After several minutes, he reached the bottom, almost falling the last twenty feet because his arms ached from exhaustion.
The pool before him was much larger and deeper than it had seemed from above. Spray from the splashing water formed a cooling mist. The water flowed out into a gurgling creek that tumbled through a series of moss-covered boulders. Long, strong branches of trees, barren of foliage and slimy from their long submersion, were wedged in crevices between the boulders by the strength of the foaming water. Through the mist, Enkinor could see the pool also flowed back under the falls, through a small cleft in the rock wall.
Strigin's cave?
He waded through the shallows, skirted the plunging water, and glanced inside the cleft. His eyes could not penetrate the darkness. Cold water swirled around his feet and passed him by, flowing into the blackness ahead. The Saerani tribesman turned his shoulders, bent his knees, and squeezed into the passage.
Once his eyes adjusted to the dearth of light, Enkinor looked around. The passage was larger than the outside opening, so he was able to stand without hitting his head on the damp stone overhead. The tunnel-like shaft stretched on, carrying the water into underground depths, but something shimmered and sparkled ahead of him. Enkinor walked up to it, squinting, wondering what it was. He reached out and touched a weird curtain of starlight and felt a solid wall. Yet the water at his feet flowed on through it.
No power save protection from sorceries, Strigin had said.
The Saerani slipped the Gauntlets onto his hands. Once again, Enkinor extended his hand, probing, exploring. His hand passed through the sparkling barrier as if it were mist. He stepped forward and through the curtain, feeling only a slight tingling sensation as he passed.
Though he was far from daylight, Enkinor could still see somehow. His booted feet sloshed through the water as he passed through two more sparkling barriers identical to the first. The stream flowed on in a narrow path, yet the walls and ceiling vanished into the darkness, and Enkinor caught his breath.
He could see neither the ceiling nor the walls of the vast cavern. There was only a lake like black glass and a narrow strip of shoreline to frame it.
Enkinor shivered in the cold damp air. This was hardly a comfortable place to hide. For as far as he could see was still, motionless water. The little shore was featureless except for a woman, who stood, staring, five yards from Enkinor.
Long, jet-black hair swept past soft eyes and well-formed lips to tumble down past her shoulders. Her thin, dark robe, tied at the waist with a leather sash, clung to her slim figure as if it were wet.
“Welcome, Saerani. He said you would come. Come, I will make you more comfortable.” She beckoned and turned, walking along the shore.
Enkinor suppressed an irrational urge to draw his sword. He left the stream to follow her, wondering how she could know him, know to expect him.
She paused to bring something from behind the queer-shaped stalagmites and lit a torch with flint and steel. By the ruddy light of the smoking brand, Enkinor sensed something unusual in her dark eyes. He started to speak, but she interrupted him.
“No questions now. First, drink this.” She produced a leather wine-bag and cup and
poured him a drink. “This will help refresh you.”
Enkinor took the cup and pretended to drink. He feigned weariness and almost fell. Looking up, he saw the black-haired woman smiling with arms outstretched.
“Come,” she said. “Take off your gloves and those wet clothes. I will get a good, warm fire started.”
Enkinor approached her and made as if to remove the Gauntlets. Instead, he grabbed the girl by both wrists with his Gauntleted hands. Her form dissolved and reformed. Instead of a woman, Enkinor stood face-to-face with Raethir Del.
Chapter 12
The sorcerer snapped his arms down and broke Enkinor's grip. With a sweep of his arm, Raethir Del vanished and stood in the shallows several yards away from the Saerani sentara.
“Such a little man,” said Raethir Del, shaking his head, “with so much faith in the resari.”
Enkinor faced him, speechless, but now with drawn sword.
“What?” said the sorcerer. “Do you know so little of those greater forces to which you are but a pawn? Surely you must have some idea of the part you attempt to play on this stage.”
Far above, angry mists twisted beneath the ceiling of the cave, stirred by unseen drafts.
But Enkinor saw Rigalen, dead, lying on his bier; Saerani huts burned to ashes; Strigin, torn and mutilated beside the stream.
After several painful moments, Enkinor found his voice. “Many have died because of you. I will not rest until you have paid for their deaths.”
Raethir Del looked up and smirked. “You are aware of so little. If it were only so simple a matter as vengeance.” He laughed. “I'm tempted to explain some of this to you. Tell me, do you really believe in free will?”