Time stretched. She had no idea how long she crouched motionless, tense as a drawn bow along the whole folded length of her, only that the strain had begun to make her intangible form ache. She didn’t want to think how her true body would feel when she returned to it. The only minor comfort was that Thorn at least wouldn’t chide her for her wanderings, and that he’d probably be just as sore.
A single rippling cha-ching marked a stir from the stranger, a shift in his massive weight. Somehow, this pause was worse than what had come before, and Elora was glad she had no weapon at hand. The temptation to race shrieking into battle—to satisfy the urge to do something—would have been near irresistible.
Then came another cascade of chimes, the chuff of retreating footfalls, the creak of wood and line from the palanquin as the bearers once more took up their burden. Without any verbal cue or command, they continued on their way, at that same implacable trot. In fairly short measure, they faded beyond Elora’s hearing and, not long after, beyond Thorn’s as well.
He didn’t relax, not in the slightest, but tugged her elbow back toward the river.
“Quickly,” he told her. “Quietly. Let us begone. And be more careful than before,” he cautioned, in a tone that made it an absolute command, “because we’ll have to pass them on our way home.”
“They’re gone, Thorn.”
“And believe me, child, you don’t want them coming back.”
“What are they?”
“Barontës. And if the tales are true, a Caliban. The one are lesser sorcerers, forming a coven around the creature they serve. The other, the ultimate warrior wizard, as adept with enchantments as with blades.”
“Like the Black Rose, you mean?”
“If only. Come. We’re gone.”
But to both their surprise, she pulled from his grasp and, ignoring the phantom creaks of phantom joints frozen in place, stepped forward from their hiding place, closer to the road.
“Elora Danan!” Thorn cried.
“Something happened here, Thorn.”
They stood in a moderate clearing, accessible from road and stream yet possessing decent cover. The tree branches didn’t begin until well above double the head height of a tall Daikini, which made the location good for cookfires. The earth was soft and loamy between her phantom toes, it had been recently turned.
“Someone died here,” she said.
She lowered herself to her knees, then to her belly, stretching herself full length as though the ground were the softest of feather beds. To his credit, Thorn stayed silent, recognizing the quality in her announcement that made plain this was no casual discovery. Then, Elora tweaked her concentration just a little, loosening the mental bonds that anchored her to the world, and sank beneath its surface. Save for the density of the medium and the total absence of light, it was much the same for her as swimming underwater. The main difference was that water moved around her as she passed through it, its currents and eddies constantly affecting her course, whereas the ground stayed relatively fixed.
She didn’t have far to go. Barely a body length in fact when her outstretched hand came across another.
It was a man, Daikini, strongly built. His death had caught him unawares, leaving no marks on his body or recognition of what was happening on his face. Elora assumed from that, he’d died in his sleep. In short order, she confirmed her worst fears, that he hadn’t died alone.
MageSight guided her on her way, illuminating her way better than sunlight. The bodies were arranged in a line, along a fairly lengthy trench, buried quickly and without ceremony, so that most were piled one upon the other. All had been stripped of their outer garments and weapons; a few gave evidence of a struggle that must have been as fierce as it proved ultimately hopeless. She thought then of the creature Thorn had named, the Caliban, and wondered what part it had played in this massacre.
The men looked familiar, faces and figures briefly seen—no more than a glance—enough to register on her memory but lacking names to properly identify them or labels to tell her when and where. Until she came across one she knew.
“Fergal,” she breathed, staring into his clouded eyes and trying not to note the snarl on his lips or the awful gaping wounds that marked his limbs and torso. He was a patrol sergeant, mainstay of the regiment. The kind of soldier who would never win prizes for deportment, whose uniform rarely stood the muster of a full-dress parade, but who also knew the Frontier like it was his own private preserve. In a scrap, it was said, there was none better to stand at your back. On patrol, though an officer had official command, those with sense, who truly knew their business, deferred to Fergal. It was whispered about the fort—no one who wanted to keep their features or their teeth was dolt enough to say so to his face—that he was mixed blood, that he could count an ancestor or three from beyond the Veil. Those who served with him counted that as a badge of honor, and pride. It was generally they who led the charge against any detractors.
His skill, his knowledge, his blood hadn’t saved him. Or his men.
Elora’s eyes burned with grief and fury…
…and the ground around her trembled ever so slightly at the Caliban’s approach.
She came up fast and silently, slithering eel-like into the air to rejoin Drumheller. The night seemed to ring with chimes, telling her the Caliban was close and coming far faster than she would have expected given his bulk. His bearers, the Barontës, flanked him on either side, curling toward their position like the horns of a bull.
The path to the river was still clear. If they hurried, escape was possible.
It was a superb trap, she almost fell for it, but Thorn caught her eyes before she could take a step and told her all she needed to know.
She leaped on him, gathering Thorn close the way she used to hold her stuffed cuddly bear at bedtime, and plunged the pair of them back into the ground. Taking his cue from her, Thorn wrapped his arms around her neck, stumpy legs as best he could about her waist, allowing her the freedom to kick with arms and legs together.
A blast of rage thundered after them, as tangible to their phantom forms as an avalanche, and it took a fair chunk of Thorn’s will combined with her own to keep them from being tumbled from their course as it overtook them. A hand came after and Elora prayed it was only imagination, and a hefty dollop of fright, that tipped its fingers with claws as long as she stood tall, sharp enough to slice soul from body.
She stayed well clear of the river, for she sensed as did Thorn that they would find some kind of net stretched across its width downstream, probably more than one, each more fine than the last, until they were snared. She wondered about their approach, and how early they’d been spotted, and with each question her estimation of their foes rose another significant notch.
Her special affinity for fire brought her unerringly to a rill of magma that coursed its way through the planetary mantle as its counterparts of water did across the surface. She could have made the whole journey through rock but this route was far quicker and a part of her was screaming all the while that time was of the essence. She slipped and slid her way along, following the course of the stream to the right, to the left, up and down, all the while at speeds that made the term breakneck seem tame by comparison, the child in her suddenly and surprisingly reasserting itself to shriek with delight at the madcap nature of their passage.
She perceived a beacon, far above and ahead, recognizing it as the grouped life forces of the inhabitants of the fort. She had perhaps a moment to marvel at the wondrous mix of intensities and hues that she realized had never been seen before in this World—where Daikini stood with Faery in common cause and common friendship—and then had to bend all her efforts to twisting free of the torrent before she was swept past her destination.
For those in the bath chamber, there was no warning. Elora lay in the tub, water cooled to the same temperature as her body, with Thorn supp
orting her head, the both of them barely breathing. Suddenly, the silence was shattered by the sound of lungs gulping in a tremendous breath of air. Elora’s skin flushed a dark and angry rose beneath its hallmark silver, Thorn’s turning likewise with the fierce onrush of blood. The water began to bubble boiling hot and those closest to the tub sprang back, Luc-Jon making a desperate grab for Thorn to yank him clear before the Nelwyn could be burned.
With Drumheller safe, the young man immediately turned back for Elora but she was already vaulting free of the tub, to land in a huddle in a far corner of the room, away from the others. When Luc-Jon turned toward her she warned him back with a flail of her hands, as though she couldn’t yet trust her body to behave. It radiated such heat that water flashed to steam upon her skin.
“Drumheller,” she called, concern making her normally broken voice sound even huskier than ever. “Thorn, are you all right? Luc-Jon, is he well?!”
“I’m fine, Elora Danan,” came the Nelwyn’s reply, emphasized by a chuckle of relief. “Bedazzled, I confess, but otherwise altogether well.”
“I’ve never done that with another,” she confessed. His head turned away at a decorous angle, Luc-Jon held out a robe, which Elora gratefully struggled into, belting it tight around her waist and closing the fastenings at its collar. She found it hard to look at Luc-Jon, either, suddenly uncomfortable that he’d seen her naked.
“Done what,” asked Luc-Jon, and Elora saw that he felt much the same.
“Ridden a rapids of fire, my boy,” Thorn told him, marveling at the experience, shaken by the cause, “through the bowels of the earth, in flight from a creature too terrible to name.”
Luc-Jon began to grin and say, “Sounds like a story worth the writing,” when his wolfhound sprang to his feet, as though the war tocsin had just sounded the call to arms. True, a trumpet could be heard, but that was merely to announce the approach of friendly forces.
“What’s that?” Elora demanded of him, seeing Puppy’s reaction.
“Only the lookout” was Luc-Jon’s reply. “Most like, the scouting force back from the upper reaches of the Cascadel.”
Before he finished his sentence, Elora bulled her way across the room and out the door, the hound right on her heels.
She was on the second floor of the hostel, in one of their best suites, and she took the stairs three at a time, racing outside to find herself at the opposite end of the waryard from the main gate. In her mind’s eye, imagination revealed what couldn’t yet be seen: a troop of a hundred cavalry emerging from the tree line a mile or so distant from the fort, approaching double file in good order, the situation as normal as could be.
She didn’t pause. Somehow, she found the wherewithal actually to increase her speed, drawing on the fullest depths of her reserves without care of the cost as she sprinted across the sprawling yard, sparing breath she could ill afford in cry after cry at the gatehouse.
“Elora Danan!” squawked a protest in one ear, the elegantly clad brownie it came from struggling for purchase on her shoulder and a handhold on the neck hem of her robe. A flick of the eyes revealed that Rool rode on her right-hand side. She didn’t need to pose any question, their next words anticipated them.
“You move fast,” Rool told her proudly, “we move faster. Jumped aboard as you went by.” Then he sounded a tad scandalized: “Didn’t even notice, you! Just because you’ve been sick, think you can forget all we taught you?”
“Had enough of this, you going gallivanting about all by your lonesome,” said Franjean, picking up an unspoken cue from his partner. “Makes us look bad, it does, like we can’t properly discharge our duties. Don’t matter where or when or why—you go, we go with, an’ there’s the end to it! Can’t do a decent job as your protectors, with you always trying to leave us behind!”
“So what’s the problem, hey?”
“Sound the alarm,” she bellowed to the guardhouse, ignoring her diminutive companions, “close the gates! It’s a trick! Those riders are impostors!”
If the sentries heard her, they didn’t believe. Not right away. Some heads turned at the sound and sight of her, this slim, lean, silver figure racing flat out for the gate with a wolfhound at her side. It was Puppy, did the trick, as he let loose a howl that raised the hackles on every neck. Few had ever heard such a noise, because precious few—even among the troops—had ever seen these magnificent beasts at war, but all recognized the sound, those of Faery as well as the Daikini. And hearing it, found themselves reflexively grabbing for weapons.
The hound bayed a second time, and this time his clarion call was taken up by his fellow pack members. One, then two, a half-dozen, the whole of his extended family, some taking up the charge to join him while others hung back to form a second line of defense, their movements as purposeful as those of the troops they served.
Even though the sounds and actions within the fort were hidden from outside view by its massive walls, some element of Elora’s headlong dash must have communicated itself to the approaching patrol, for they spurred their mounts into a gallop, as intent now on reaching the gate as Elora.
The young woman didn’t slow her pace in the slightest, even when a few of the sentries stepped forward to block her path. All but one she dodged, with a ridiculous ease that left the soldiers flat-footed in her wake. This last, a woman, was treated to a body check that popped her instantly to the ground, hard enough on her backside to dislodge her grip on a halberd spear as long as Elora was tall, topped by a curved blade that extended it by an arm’s length. Most spears were designed as stabbing weapons, to be used in massed formations of infantry. This was meant more for a woman’s use, utilizing agility and speed more than raw strength; in trained hands it was much like wielding a sword with double the normal reach and more. It could be especially effective against cavalry.
Elora spared herself time and breath for one last cry, over her shoulder because she refused to slacken her pace by even a step, and this was with the voice she’d learned in Angwyn, watching the King, and later in battle, listening to his daughter Anakerie. It was a voice of Royal command and to hear it was to obey, instinctively, immediately, and without hesitation.
“Close the gate!” she yelled, noting that the onrushing riders had spread out into a rough arrowhead formation. Their own spears were still held upright, maintaining the fiction that they were friendly. Elora’s, she held across her front at a diagonal, the blade pointing up and back over her right shoulder.
Behind, so far away it seemed the fort had receded to the very horizon (she should be so fortunate), she made out the belated sound of the alarm tocsin, shouted orders, the bustle of soldiery reacting too late to the attack. Someone at long last had recognized the cavalry charge for what it truly was. Then, Elora thrust all awareness from her but that of the task at hand. She reached once more to the earth that had so often sustained her and set loose another charge of magma from her heart, giving fire to her blood and strength to every muscle.
With a bellow of defiance, she swung her spear for the rider to her left.
He ducked, sensible fellow, and the blade whizzed past his ear in a clean miss. Sadly, he wasn’t her intended target as she reversed the grip of her hands and thrust the butt of her staff up and sideways into the body of the man who headed the spearpoint of the charge. Caught unawares, the solid impact stopped him in his tracks, the shock transmitting itself down the shaft of the spear and into Elora’s shoulders like a direct physical blow. She thought her arms might pop from their sockets. Instead, the rider was catapulted from his saddle.
She gave no thought to the man she’d deliberately missed. He had troubles of his own, as did many of his fellows, as Puppy and his pack went for mounts and riders both. She heard a cry, panic and pain mixed, topped by a snarl as the trooper was tackled by Elora’s wolfhound. All around her, the attack dissolved into chaos, the irresistible momentum of the charge disrupted by
snapping jaws and rearing, terrified horses. At the same time, the brownies made their own contribution, loosing arrow after arrow from their bows, imbuing each shaft with that portion of their life force sufficient to make them strike like battering rams. With the horses, they weren’t as blunt, choosing lances that stung rather than bludgeoned and letting the animals themselves take care of the rest as they reacted to what must feel like the ultimate bee sting.
Elora had no hope of actually stopping the attack, even with the brownies’ and Puppy’s help; the odds against them were simply too great and the ground too advantageous to her foes. True, the first section of the charge had been thrown into chaos and the momentum of the assault broken, but she was engaging only a fraction of the total force. The rest speedily regrouped, fanning out from Elora on either side, bypassing her in favor of their true objective.
However, precious time had been lost. Not much in objective terms, hardly more than a minute, but militarily that proved a fatal delay. Archers had reached their firing posts on the parapet, their great longbows capable of punching steel-tipped yew shafts through plate armor at a hundred yards and more. A squad of infantry formed ranks outside the gate, advancing to Elora’s support, ready to sacrifice their own lives in her defense. But the gate itself remained infuriatingly open, and the thought chilled Elora that perhaps treachery was involved here.
That thought was nearly her last as a frantic backpedal barely cleared her from a wild sword swing, a miss so close that her robe was sliced open across the whole width of her belly. She was already swinging the butt of her spear around to crack the man upside his head when another, burlier figure rose from the ground. Luc-Jon wrenched the warrior’s sword from his unconscious grasp and took a stance at Elora’s back. The next few moments were for them both a continuous flow of movement, bobbing and weaving, spinning high, crouching low, Elora using her spear as club, as scythe, breaking bones when she had to, drawing blood when there was no other choice. The battle became for her a kind of dance, possessing a grace and murderous beauty all its own that at once repelled and excited her. Facing the abyss of death, she had never felt more alive, eyes sparkling, the most madcap of grins on her face. By her side, Luc-Jon wielded his sword with a rough-hewn skill that matched his appearance. He’d win no points in a tournament for style, but none of his foes came close with their own blades, while his in turn tended to find its way unerringly through their defenses.
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