by Myers, Karen
If Zandaril was alive he would be there, she hoped, but she didn’t dare try to probe more obviously. She was closer to the Voice now than she had been when he first detected her. Is my shield that much better, or is he just ignoring me for now? If I get too close my chain will feel his—surely it works the other way, too.
The Rasesni wizards are going to ride right past him on this road, if they don’t stop now. Should I tell them?
The subject of long-range searching hadn’t come up while she was with them. Was it possible they didn’t know?
And why should she tell them?
While she watched and debated with herself, the approaching formation out in the fields shifted. The surrounding tribesmen peeled off at a trot and turned into the woods north of the upper road, heading east, while the rest halted. In a little while, she heard the rustle of their passing across the further road for several minutes, and was grateful her camp was hidden well out of sight on the road they didn’t take.
When they reached the portion of the upper road parallel to the lower one where the wizards were riding, she felt the glee on the one side from the running warriors, and the alarm on the other as the wizards heard the noise. They stopped and shielded themselves, but the Khrebesni continued on past them north of both roads, headed for the fork.
What good did the wizards think their shields were going to do anyway, thirty-odd against hundreds of warriors?
The decision about warning them had been taken out of her hands. The one who needed warning now was Tlobsung, and there was no one in his column she could reach, even if she wanted to.
To the west, the horde resumed its march, with the captive wizards behind it, at an angle aimed at intersecting the group from Kunchik on their present course.
And those wizards were still milling about in confusion at the passage of the tribesmen.
I’ll give them credit, at least they’ll try an attack on the Voice, looks like. It’s not going to work, though, not if he sics the horde on them. What a waste.
Well, I can’t let him suck up thirty more wizards, now can I?
She abandoned her pack and took to the air, east and low along the road, below the treetops, shielded and trying to keep out of sight of the horde in the fields. Was there anyplace they could take a defensive position, before the horde was upon them? Tlobsung would have his own hands full and they couldn’t count on him.
She found them on their horses just a mile or so away, arguing about what to do next. They had two wagons with them, stopped in the middle of the road. When she flared up and landed, it shocked them into stopping their dispute. As soon as they had recovered, shouts of “traitor” and “murderer” rose from some of the riders. A few even tried mind assaults that failed to penetrate her shield.
She caught the eye of Veneshjug and smiled at him, a rigid, fixed smile, as full of promise as she could make it, then turned to the rest of them. “Who wants to attack me first and defend the honor of your Mage Council?”
That puzzled them into relative silence, and she raised her voice to carry over them all.
“That sound you heard was hundreds of Khrebesni headed off to set an ambush for Tlobsung, I expect.”
They settled down and listened. Only the creak of their leather gear intruded. “Why aren’t you with them?” she asked.
Zongchas told her, nervously keeping his horse at some distance. “We got ahead of them.”
“Don’t you read anything other than mage books?” She shook her head. “Who’s going to protect you, now that Tlobsung’s about to be tied up?”
An outraged voice cried, “We brought devices.”
“Oh, yes? Planning to throw them at the horde out there while they attack? That might buy you thirty seconds. You’re idiots—you needed the infantry for support against the enemy. Didn’t you know that? Didn’t Tlobsung tell you?”
One look at Dhumkedbhod’s shocked face gave her pause. Maybe they’ve never united like this before, never fought with an army. Did they even coordinate with Tlobsung?
She stood there on the road and looked up at all of them on their horses, trying to make them understand. “I can’t find the Voice. He might be with the tribesmen that passed by or with them out there in the field.” She hooked her thumb at the horde coming their way. “They’re coming at you, right now. If you’re quiet, you’ll hear them.”
In the silence, they all heard an eerie swishing noise, not the tramp of marching men, but the chaotic push of a hundred or more sweeping through an unharvested field.
“You’ve got horses, you can probably get away and link up with Tlobsung if you hurry.”
She could hear a bitter argument start up among the Mage Council members, and she took a moment to glance around the riders. Too few were bearing weapons—swords, mostly, belted awkwardly over their robes.
The decision was taking too long. She turned to the two wagon drivers. “Get those wagons emptied, right now. We’re going to turn them into barricades—upend them on the south side of the road, wheels out, and take refuge in the trees back of them. Tie the horses behind you.”
While the Mage Council sputtered objections, Penrys’s one-time students stripped the wagons bare and freed the horses. She scanned the sacks as they carried them and detected devices and loose power-stones among them. Others led the horses into the trees and returned.
The noise of the wagons overturning with a crash almost drowned out the horde’s measured, inexorable approach. As the mist began to burn off in the warmth of the morning, Penrys could see the first of them in the gaps between the trees across the road. Their faces were blank and tired, not eager like men going willingly to a fight.
Their weapons were primitive, wooden sticks and rocks, but it was more than some of the wizards had. She’d been teaching her students how to attack other wizards, not mundane people, controlled by the Voice.
Can I break that control? How is he doing it?
She called to wizards sheltering behind the wagons. *Shield with me. Don’t shield us, you fools—them. Put a shield around them.*
It was a mess of confusion. Oh, Zandaril, if you were only here to put them into some sort of order.
Some of them even broke off to prepare small devices that they threw into the horde, cheering when they exploded, like the charms Veneshjug had prepared for Chang’s camp. The trees across the road blunted some of the force, and their unskilled aim reduced the effect of the rest. The men coming didn’t swerve or hesitate, and the first of them set foot on the road.
CHAPTER 54
Penrys failed to make the wizards into a unified force as the horde arrived. *Listen to me!*
This isn’t going to work. Time for a single leader. She reached for Veneshjug’s mind. Him, first. She ripped through his shield and drained him as she had Vladzan, but left him a portion of his strength, letting her chain absorb the rest.
As quickly as she could she worked her way through the rest of them, a few willing, like Dzantig, but most of them fighting her.
When she had them all under control, she spun a shield around the horde, all of it, and defied the Voice to break it. She felt his resistance initially, but he withdrew. Where is he?
The effect on the horde was immediate. The men stopped and swayed on their feet, their faces puzzled. She told them, *Sleep, now, and stay asleep.*
They collapsed to the ground. Behind her, there were cries of horror at having their power ripped away.
She taunted Veneshjug. *Enjoying this?* The wordless hostility that returned pleased her.
Penrys turned her attention back to the field. She could feel resistance coming from the captive wizards—they were trying to raise shields against the Voice, but they were weak. Since there was no longer any point in hiding, she scanned through the group individually, forty or fifty of them, and there! There was Zandaril! She shielded him immediately.
*Took a long time. I was getting bored.*
She smiled, but he felt terrible to her, his magic
feeble, and his body in pain. She stretched her mind out and powered his core, from her chain, as if he were a power-stone, and he blazed vividly to life.
*What did you do?!*
He stuttered to a stop and pictured the group of captives. *Do them all! I’ve been organizing them.*
The humor underlying that thought was very welcome. She poured power into each of the captives as she pulled them under her shield.
All this power! It was exhilarating. There was nothing she couldn’t do. Her chain seemed limitless.
She tried to be cautious, but she thought she felt a few of them drop out. Was it possible to overfill someone, like a power-stone? She cringed, but she had to be quick. Why hadn’t the Voice counter-attacked? Where was he?
All of the captives were sheltered now, under their own second shield. She could feel them coming her way, very slowly, and she remembered the shackles.
What about the Rasesni wizards? Shouldn’t they be shielded too? She couldn’t release the sleeping horde, or the Voice could seize them back. It was beginning to be a lot to juggle.
Penrys’s chain started to throb, and she spun around frantically, looking for the Voice who had to be nearby.
Her control over the wizards around her was stripped away, and she could dimly hear Veneshjug’s mental voice, *Allow me to serve you, zendo, great lord.*
The Voice’s harsh and well-remembered mind-voice commanded his new captives, *Hold her.*
Some were eager to comply, but were physically restrained by others, and she could feel several of them banding together to try and raise shields to shelter behind, with the remnants of power left to them by the Voice and herself.
In the confusion, before they could reach her, the Voice stepped out from behind the trees where he had hidden while the horde advanced.
Penrys had forgotten how tall he was, tall enough that the two-handed sword slung on his belt seemed to suit him. How could anyone with that mind-voice look so young, no older than me?
The Voice’s assault was immediate, and frighteningly strong. He’d seized what was left of the wizards’ power, and Penrys could feel the difference.
I should have taken it all from them so he couldn’t have it. Curse me for a soft fool.
She held her shield over the sleeping horde and augmented the one generated by the captives in the field, but there was nothing left to attack with.
He kept the pressure up, probing methodically for weaknesses, and meanwhile speaking to his new captives in ways she couldn’t hear.
He’s so much more experienced. Even his chain feels older, stronger. I’m losing this.
Movement caught her eye, and she focused on Veneshjug rushing her with a short sword. He moved awkwardly, as though controlled by the Voice.
Is he a puppet or did he volunteer?
Penrys tripped him and dodged out of his way, but it gave her an idea. Does the Voice use that sword much? I don’t see armor. When’s the last time anyone went after him physically?
She drew Tak Tuzap’s ax and ran at the Voice before he could retreat. As she got within striking distance, the burning of her chain around her neck almost stopped her. She could smell sizzling flesh, and the pain distracted her. Is it happening to him, too? Is he causing it, or do the chains act independently?
He had time to draw his sword and stand her off with a swing, and Penrys realized how bad her position was—no shield, nothing to parry with. She drew Tak’s belt knife as her only option, but her feet felt clumsy, the weapons small and inadequate in her hands.
She managed to slice him with the ax on his left upper arm, but she knew his clothing had blunted the damage. When he advanced on her, she fell back.
Veneshjug tried to join in, but almost tripped him, and the Voice compelled him to the ground, out of the way.
She defended herself against his swings with the ax and knife, but she knew herself untrained and incompetent. Her best success was catching his blade with both of hers, held in an “X,” but that was nothing but a defensive maneuver. I have to attack somehow. Wish m’body knew about this kind of fighting.
The horridly painful blazing of her chain urged her to back away, but she knew if she couldn’t stop him now, her chances would only get worse, so she let the tears run down her cheeks and tried to ignore it.
He swung powerfully from his left, and this time, her attempt to catch his blade failed, and it ran down the back of the little knife in her left hand, right down the hilt, and the knife fell. She felt a chill in her hand, and when she glanced down, she saw fingers in the dust of the road. Her fingers. The bones in her palm seemed to loosen in a horrible way.
The momentum of his swing when it didn’t meet the expected resistance spun the Voice around and twisted his body to his right. Penrys sprang from the ground as though she were launching herself into the air, and cleaved the side of his head with the small ax, its blade no larger than her hand. It penetrated so deeply that she lost her grip, and she saw the wound spouting blood around it as they both collapsed to the ground.
She jammed her ruined left hand under her right armpit, to try and slow the blood pumping out. It didn’t hurt yet, but the sight of the bare thumb was sickening, and her stomach roiled.
With her mind firmly locked on the Voice’s, she felt his own shield drop and then his control of the wizards around her.
She probed him, frantically. *Who are you? Who made you? Did he make me, too? Why?*
There were no answers from the dying mind, just a dimming sense of surprise.
She could feel expertises in areas she didn’t recognize, and his native language, one she didn’t know.
And then he was gone.
There was silence for a moment. At some point, her chain had ceased to burn, though the pain was still eye-watering.
Veneshjug started to pick himself up and looked for his dropped sword, but Dzantig and others appearing from behind the barricade stopped him from renewing his attack on her, and he turned to the body instead.
Under Penrys’s stunned eyes, he reached down, worked the ax loose from the skull, and struck the body at the top of the neck.
She blinked. Rolling over on her left side and keeping her left hand pinned under her right arm, she made her way onto her knees and then staggered up and started to back away, unable to turn her eyes from the sight.
Veneshjug struck again, and again, his blows becoming stronger and more focused until finally he managed to separate the head from the neck.
The head rolled a few feet in the road, heavy as a stone, and Penrys caught a glimpse of ears as it did, ears just like hers, black and furry. One was dusty from the road, and one was covered in blood from the gaping wound. They alternated as they rolled, and she couldn’t take her eyes away. The blood leaking from the base left trails in the dust until it stopped flowing.
When Veneshjug stooped to pick up the Voice’s chain from the topless neck, and lifted it into the air in both hands in exultation, the hot blood running down his arms steamed in the cold air.
Her chain began to throb again, painfully over the burns, and she shouldered through the wizards standing in shock at the edge of the barricades.
“Get back!” she cried hoarsely. If her chain had a voice, she thought it would be screaming.
When she ducked behind the upended wagon, she glimpsed the carnage behind it. Most of the wizards were collapsed on the ground, and some weren’t moving at all.
He sucked them dry. He must have.
Veneshjug on the other side, cried out a dedication to Venesh. Then he invoked the chain, like a power-stone.
A tremendous boom rocked the upended wagons and she heard screams from people on the wrong side of the barricade.
Her own chain was quiet again, resting firmly against burned and scored flesh.
Penrys staggered cautiously around the upended wagon and back into the road. There was nothing left of the Voice, head or body, and not much of Veneshjug, either. Dhumkedbhod and two other men lay dead in t
he road and there were several injured, groaning.
Dzantig came with her. As she staggered by the wagon, a glint of metal embedded in it caught her eye. “Can you dig that out for me?” she asked him.
He worked around it with his knife and pried it out—a three link fragment of the destroyed chain.
None of the pockets in her improvised clothing were accessible. “Drop it in the sheath, would you?”
She pointed her chin at the empty leather sheath for Tak’s knife on her belt. “Stuff it in there.”
She leaned against the wagon and locked her knees to keep from falling down. Her gaze was focused on the dusty road at her feet, and she noted distantly that something was still dripping red there, a little at a time. She was cold and very tired, and her fingers were out there, somewhere.
CHAPTER 55
Zandaril shuffled tenaciously through the field, in the trampled path of the horde where he could, desperate to get to the fight before it was too late. Penrys’s shield had dropped away before the loud noise, and the shield he’d raised with Rinshradke, pulling in the rest of the surviving captives, was ragged and uneven, despite the power Penrys had charged them with.
He couldn’t reach her through the shield, and the screams and cries that succeeded the explosion had him terrified about what he might find.
They had watched the horde ahead of them drop in the field, and it was a surprise to find they’d been sleeping, not dead, and were now waking up, confused and scared. Rinshradke assigned two of the weakest wizards to stay with them and try and keep them together until help could come.
The rest of the captive wizards plowed forward, mowing down the grain as they passed.
Dead and injured bodies from the horde littered the edge of the field, and damage showed in the trees, but finally they managed to make their way through the margin and onto the road.
Zandaril tried to make sense of the chaos before him. Two wagons were upended on the far side, liberally streaked with blood, and there were bodies everywhere.
He dropped his shield. *Where are you, Pen-sha?*