The Falcon and The Wolf

by Richard Baker

  Startled by his sudden outcry, the guards scrambled to their feet and mounted, springing into motion. The knight scowled and cantered toward Bannier. “What? What is it?”

  At that moment, Seriene’s barrier severed Bannier from his source. It was like a cold, keen blade slicing through his flesh, amputating part of him. He shrieked in pain and staggered, while the strength and power that he hoarded in the center of his being drained away like the blood of a man whose arteries have been cut. The Ghoeran backed away from the wizard, a startled oath on his lips, as Bannier stumbled to the ground and caught himself on his elbows, floundering in the red mud. Bannier was aware of the shouts of the Ghoerans around him, but his attention was focused inward, trying to assess the extent of the damage.

  After an agonizing span of twenty or thirty heartbeats, Bannier found a mere shadow of his strength returning, leaving him weaker than he had been. Mustering as much dignity as he could, he picked himself up and brushed the mud from his robes while he considered the implications of what had just happened. He knew Gaelin had struck at him, though he also recognized that because of the time distortion in the Shadow World, the attack might have actually occurred some time bef o re. Bannier allowed himself the luxury of a dire oath.

  The men nearby blanched but stood their ground. “What is the problem?” demanded the Ghoeran knight, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

  Bannier ignored the warrior, finishing his spell. He conjured a dark doorway of writhing shadow in front of the barrow’s stone-choked face. “Follow me in single file,” he said, dismissing the knight’s anger. He hoisted himself into the saddle.

  “Into that?”

  “You’ll be fine as long as you stay close by and don’t lose sight of me.” Bannier looked back and fixed the young Ghoeran with his glare. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid to follow where I go?”

  The knight spat. “Go on, lead the way.”

  “Remember, stay close,” Bannier said. “I will lead you on paths from which you do not want to stray.” With his horse kicking up clods of dark mud, he rode into the Shadow.

  *****

  While Seriene examined the strength of her shielding one more time, reinforcing the spell where she could, Gaelin and Erin tried to revive Ilwyn. She looked like a pale flower preserved by the snow, her face and limbs cold and imbued with only a semblance of life. Gaelin despaired of waking her; the fires of her life had cooled to embers, too dark to rekindle. He rubbed her arms vigorously, trying to warm her, while Erin trickled some strong brandy between her lips. “I think we need to get her out of here,” the bard said. “This place is unhealthy.

  I don’t think Ilwyn will recover until she’s back on the other side.”

  “You’re probably right,” he replied. “It couldn’t hurt to get away from here.” He retrieved his cloak and wrapped it tightly around Ilwyn’s torso, wincing. The talons of the shadow monster had scored him deeply, and his injuries still pained him. When he finished, he signaled to Seriene. “Can we get going? We need to leave this place.”

  Seriene’s exhaustion was evident. Still, she finished her examination of the barrier before she allowed herself to slowly turn away, her stride unsteady. Watching her, Gaelin wondered what price she paid to gain her sorcerous skills; clearly they were not won or wielded lightly. “That should keep him busy for a time,” she declared.

  “What did you do?”

  “Severing the ley lines dismissed the source. Think of it this way: If Caer Duirga is a well from which Bannier draws his power, severing the lines is like cutting the rope for the bucket. The well itself isn’t damaged – I’m not strong enough to do that, no one is – but even after Bannier undoes this barrier, he’ll have to spend a lot of time and effort calling Caer Duirga back to life.”

  “What were the spells you just wove into your barrier?” asked Gaelin.

  “Traps,” Seriene replied with a fierce show of her teeth.

  “He’ll want to be careful in approaching my work. Now, let’s get moving before he shows up to investigate. I don’t think I have the strength to face him now.”

  Seriene led the battered party back to the doorway she had created to enter the Shadow World, while the rest followed as best they could. Boeric, Bull, and the three remaining guardsmen carried the bodies of their fallen comrades; no one wanted to leave the dead soldiers in the cold and gloom of the place. Gaelin carried Ilwyn – she felt light as a feather in his arms, as if she had grown close to insubstantiality as her life faded in Bannier’s black circle – and, with a dark look at Gaelin, Erin helped Seriene along. The Dieman’s fatigue was even greater than she let on.

  To Gaelin’s eyes, nothing remained to indicate that Seriene’s door had pierced the barriers between the worlds, but Seriene seemed to know instinctively where she had left the gateway.

  She began the invocations needed to open the door again, but halted after a few syllables. “Damn,” she muttered. She looked a round, her eyes flicking nervously from the gloom that surrounded them to the cheerless sky. “The gate’s gone.”

  After a moment of stunned silence, Bull said, “Your Highness, what do you mean, gone?”

  Seriene directed a withering gaze at him. “This is a deceitful place. The gate has shifted, vanished, or been closed by design. I’ll have to find another or ready a spell capable of forcing the passage again.”

  Gaelin looked down at Ilwyn’s cold face. “I don’t know if my sister will last that long. How hard is it to find an exit back to our world? I mean, could there be one nearby?”

  Seriene waved her hands in disgust. “I don’t know. I guess I should start looking.” Bowing her head, she stretched out her arm, extending her senses to search for another weakness or flaw in the dimensional barriers. Gaelin glanced around nervously. The withered trees and sere grass rustled and creaked, but he felt no breeze on his face. He could almost make out some kind of muttering, a voice whispering in the shadows, faint and hard to hear. He found himself straining forward to hear the words, words he must understand…

  “Riders coming,” announced Erin. With a start, Gaelin realized that he’d let himself drift off. He shook himself, looking up at where Erin stood, gazing into the gloom. “They’re climbing the hill, back to the stones. I can hear their horses.”

  Gaelin rose and moved to see where she was looking. He could discern nothing in the gloom. “Are you sure your mind isn’t playing tricks on you?” he asked.

  “I’m certain of it,” she replied.

  “It must be Bannier. Who else would come this way?”

  Gaelin carefully laid Ilwyn down on the cold stone, checking to make sure that his cloak covered her for warmth. The soldiers readied themselves, throwing cloaks back over their shoulders to clear their sword arms. Boeric and two of the other men still had their crossbows. They cocked and loaded the weapons with grim looks on their faces. Gaelin debated the advantages of flight, but he didn’t want to abandon their best route home.

  “What should we do, Lord Mhor?” asked Boeric. In the gloom and the cold, the stoop-shouldered sergeant resembled an old, weather-beaten fence post, gray and featureless.

  “Let’s wait here and keep out of sight,” Gaelin decided.

  “They may miss us. We’re in no condition for a fight.”

  Erin nodded in agreement. Distantly, they could make out the rough voices of the intruders, as they shouted orders to each other and trampled the ground of the clearing, but the sound was far fainter than it should have been. After a moment, Erin’s mouth stretched flat in a dark grimace. “Bannier’s with them. They’re asking him what to do. I think – ”

  Suddenly, there was a flash of pure white light that illuminated the trees, blinding them all with its glare, and a rolling crack of thunder that echoed among the black rocks. Gaelin blinked spots out of his eyes and swore. “What in Haelyn’s glory was that?”

  “My spell of warding,” Seriene answered. She paused in her divining to look back toward the stone circle,
hidden by the dark shoulder of the hillside. “Bannier must have been impatient; I thought for certain he’d find and disarm it.” She f rowned thoughtfully. “It was a powerful enchantment, Gaelin. It might have killed him or anyone else nearby.”

  “Then we may find Bannier and his allies at a disadvantage,” Gaelin breathed, climbing to his feet. He studied the darkness. Cries of distress came faintly to his ears. He’d like nothing more than to take the fight to Bannier in a direct fashion.

  In fact, he’d like to know for certain that Bannier was not going to be a threat to anyone for whom he cared again. He glanced at Seriene. “Do you have any more spells of that sort at your command?”

  “No. I’ve exhausted my powers. I’ll be lucky to open the door again, once I find it.”

  Gaelin weighed their options. As long as Tuorel had Bannier’s magic to aid his powerful army, Mhoried didn’t stand a chance. And he owed Bannier for the deaths of his father and brother. “Seriene, you stay here,” he decided. “We can’t afford to risk losing you to a stray arrow or sword blow, not when you’re our only way home.” He picked out one of the surviving guardsmen, a fellow who had been wounded in the fray with the shadow monsters. “Hueril, you remain here to guard her and Ilwyn. The rest of you, come with me.”

  They retraced their steps back to the clearing, which still danced and glimmered with an eerie, pale radiance. Gaelin quietly drew his sword and held it bared in his hand as they cautiously climbed the last few feet to the lip of the hollow through the dead, twisted trees. His breath steamed in front of him, streaming away in the coldness.

  The stone circle stood much as they had left it, the black altar waiting in the center of the ring, but around the stones a silvery light glittered dimly. It curved over the whole site in a shimmering hemisphere, looking like a great crystal dome that neatly covered the standing stones. Blue sparks rippled across its surface, arcing and spitting at odd intervals. A dozen Ghoeran guardsmen in the clearing were trying to calm their panicking horses. Four or five more men were scattered on the ground, victims of Seriene’s enchantments.

  Erin tapped his shoulder and pointed. “There’s Bannier.”

  Following her gaze, Gaelin spotted the wizard. Bannier stood about forty feet away, with his back to them, surveying Seriene’s barrier. He seemed completely unharmed; obviously, he hadn’t been the one to set off the spell trap, or he’d had some way of eluding the spell’s strike. The sorcerer muttered to himself and stalked back and forth, ignoring the wounded men around him.

  “Well? What now? They still outnumber us two to one.”

  “Can you do something to frighten the horses? Scare them off?” Gaelin asked. “We have the advantage of surprise, but it would be helpful if a few of those men weren’t in the fight.”

  Erin smiled. “I think I can do that.” The bard closed her eyes in concentration, and began humming softly to herself, making soft passes with her hands.

  Gaelin looked back at the soldiers who waited in the shadows.

  “Fire at anyone who isn’t running away, and then follow me into the clearing,” he told them. “Wait for Erin’s spell before you shoot. Bull, stay by me and watch my back.” The Mhoriens acknowledged their orders with silent salutes and moved stealthily into the trees.

  Erin’s vocalizations acquired a musical tone. She glanced at Gaelin, and then stepped forward and released her spell.

  There was a sudden flood of white mist in the clearing, and with a great bound, the largest and most terrifying wolf Gaelin had ever seen leaped into the center of the Ghoeran soldiers, snarling and slashing its teeth left and right at the soldiers’ mounts. Despite himself, Gaelin recoiled at the sight of the beast. He could hear the monster growling and snapping, the throaty rasp of its bellows-like roar, the snap of twigs under its heavy paws. The air reeked of wolf scent.

  The Ghoerans’ steeds went mad with panic. Rearing and plunging, several threw their riders. Others wheeled and bolted in terror, blindly galloping into the black woods and endless night, as the wolf slavered and slashed at their heels.

  A handful of the Iron Guardsmen retained control of their mounts and turned on the wolf-thing in their midst, or managed to at least keep their animals from bolting or rearing, but at that moment Boeric and the other two guardsmen fired.

  Two more of the Ghoerans fell from the saddle, clutching at bolts that appeared in their chests.

  Bannier whirled in surprise and suspicion. Erin’s illusion didn’t fool him for a moment; he instantly perceived the nature of the attack. “Stop! Stop, you idiots, it is merely a phantasm!” he roared. “It isn’t real!” The horses, however, were far more terrified than the soldiers, and the panicking animals were causing most of the chaos among the Ghoeran ranks.

  Nothing Bannier said was going to convince a bolting horse that the wolf wasn’t real.

  Gaelin rushed the wizard, breaking cover and racing for- ward with a wild yell, Bull a step behind him. Bannier raised one hand and pointed at Gaelin, speaking a spell. Gaelin felt his steps become slow and clumsy, as Bannier’s dark eyes glittered and the wizard’s will sought to overcome his own.

  Gaelin’s volition crumbled beneath the insidious assault.

  Gaelin, stop. Lay down your sword. Stop. Hold where you are, and drop your weapon! Obey me!

  Beside him, Bull skidded to a stop in a blank daze, his mattock falling heavily to the ground from nerveless fingers. The big fighter’s momentum carried him two more steps on failing legs, and then he stumbled and fell, groveling in terror.

  Gaelin went to one knee, struggling to find his courage again.

  Bannier grinned in triumph, stepping forward and raising his staff to strike a blow while Gaelin was held motionless. The staff’s ironbound head began to glow with angry purple light, a radiance of dire potency that burned with dark energy.

  “I didn’t expect to find you still waiting for me here, Gaelin,” Bannier hissed. “But, since you’ve presented yourself to me, I’ll count it as an unlooked-for blessing. What did you do with Ilwyn?”

  Gaelin screwed his eyes shut and looked away, willing himself not to answer. Bannier snorted in irritation. In Gaelin’s mind, the sorcerer’s will surged forward, dragging and tugging at his soul. Answer me! What have you done with Ilwyn?

  “She’s somewhere far from here,” he spat, forcing the words through his lips and fighting to keep control over what he said. “She’s safe and out of your reach.”

  “On the contrary, I think she must be very near,” Bannier said. He glanced around the clearing, ignoring the wolf and the attendant chaos it caused. The Mhoriens had felled several more of his guards, but a half-dozen men were brutally kicking and spurring their horses up the slope and into the trees. In moments they’d engage the hidden sharpshooters.

  Bannier’s spell ripped an inarticulate gasp of resistance from Gaelin. The Mhor clamped his teeth together, holding his jaw shut by force of will. Scowling, Bannier gave up the effort. “Your will is admirable, but it matters little. In a moment, I’ll finish with you and your friends, and I’ll find your sister again. And now, your reign is at an end, Mhor Gaelin.”

  Gaelin struggled to escape the paralysis that gripped his limbs. Bannier reached forward to bring the deadly staff in contact with Gaelin’s head. Along its length Gaelin could see hateful runes crackling with power, the weapon filled with destructive potential. He knew that its touch would end his life. Distantly, he heard Erin scream in fear.

  And somewhere, in a still place in the depths of his soul, a voice spoke out in protest. You are the Mhor. Asmall but bright flame ignited in his heart, a white point of light that suddenly blazed forward like a bonfire, racing through his limbs and overwhelming the wizard’s malignant dolor. The shadows that imprisoned Gaelin’s mind fled into the night, dissipating into ash as the power contained in his blood ignited in a blaze of glory.

  As the staff came near his face, the purple radiance searing his eyes, he roared in protest and brought up his sword to bloc
k the killing blow. The clean highland blade met the sorcerer’s dire assault, and turned it aside with an angry clang of iron on steel. “No!” Gaelin shouted, surging up from his knees. He recovered from his parry and lashed out in a low, wicked cut that Bannier just barely managed to sidestep. The wizard’s face was openmouthed in astonishment, but he maintained enough presence of mind to jab the venomous staff at Gaelin again, forcing the prince to parry in turn.

  Bannier attempted to back away, to find room to attempt another spell, but Gaelin was not to be stopped. His white wrath carried him forward, slashing with powerful blows that Bannier was hard-pressed to avoid. Wielding his staff with surprising skill and agility, Bannier gave ground. “Iron Guard! To me!” he shouted. “To me!”

  Gaelin didn’t look around. He trusted Erin and his soldiers had handled the rest of the guardsmen. He pressed his attack recklessly, his vision suffused with a glorious brilliance and the roaring of his blood in his ears nothing more than a sweet whisper of encouragement. Reversing his attack, he struck Bannier with a long cut that gashed the wizard’s side, and followed it with a high, backhanded slash that glanced from the wizard’s skull, spinning him half around and opening a bloody wound across Bannier’s scalp.

  In desperation, Bannier shouted a word that directed a lance of pure violet energy at Gaelin. But Gaelin anticipated the move and deflected Bannier’s aim by stepping under his guard and knocking the wizard’s arm skyward. With his hand clenched around his sword hilt, he found a perfect opportunity to deliver a deep uppercut to the wizard’s jaw, a solid punch that cracked bone and sent Bannier reeling backward – into Seriene’s barrier.

  Silver light flared and battled with purple fire, transfixing the wizard on an arcing bolt of energy. Bannier shrieked and danced, pinned where he was by the uncontrollable lashing of his limbs and the bright, burning magic. Gaelin paused a moment, looking on in astonishment, and then he took his bastard sword in both hands and hammered the wide, keen blade through the center of Bannier’s chest. The wizard howled in inhuman agony, coughing a gout of black blood from his mouth, his hands scrabbling at the impaling sword.