Hambly, Barbara - Sun Wolf 3 - Dark hand of magic.txt

by Dark Hand of Magic [lit]

  "I am a woman, dammit! I couldn't ... " From the dark of the mine shaft behind her came the soft crunch of feet. She turned, her sword in her hand.

  It was Moggin, alone. He was hugging himself for warmth in the Chief's baggy black jacket; against the abyss behind him, his dark form was stooped, as if he were tired beyond description, but when he spoke his voice sounded better than it had since the attack on the camp. "The Chief says to begin. He'll revive the hex the moment the relief party is sent out from the camp to quell the riot in Wrynde. He says he'll meet you on the road back to the camp, once the relief party has been ambushed and taken."

  "Is he all right?" the Hawk asked. She, too, remembered the unintelligible warnings written in the ancient demonary, and Sun Wolf's uneasiness about some of those eldritch spells.

  Moggin hesitated for a long time before replying. "It's-difficult to tell," he temporized. "He survived the rising of the power, which I gather not everyone does." His voice wavered a little, as if still shaken by what he had seen.

  Ari glanced at the sky, slate and charcoal above the broken iron teeth of the rim of the dell. "How long will it last?" he asked softly. "It'll take the Hawk at least two hours to get into Wrynde, skrag the guards, and free the men there to start the riot-say another hour or two for whomever they let get away to reach the camp, depending on whether the chump is smart enough to steal the horse they're going to leave standing around unguarded. By the time the relief party hits our ambush, will he still be able to help us?"

  That was the trouble with war, the Hawk thought detachedly: she, top, was considering the Chief in terms of the cold economies of his strength, suppressing the part of her that screamed To hell with that! Is he going to live through all this? It was something Moggin wouldn't know anyway, and something that, in a way, didn't matter at this point.

  "I think so," Moggin's soft voice said out of the shadows.

  "He need more Keep-Awakes?" Ari cared about him, too, the Hawk knew. But at this moment, what he really cared about-what he had to most care about-was his men, and the success of the exercise as a whole. There would be time to grieve afterward, if Sun Wolf's contribution to all this turned out to be his life.

  A small part of her still wanted to slap him for the callousness of his tone.

  "No," the philosopher said. "No, that's all been ... eaten up in the power of the spell." He coughed, the sound of it bad, and fell silent for a long moment, while Ari gave the wordless signal to the Little Thurg, the closest of the relay messengers, to start the men for the ambush point.

  Then Moggin said, "He asked me to tell you both that he loves you, in case he doesn't see you again."

  Purcell was aware of him now. Somewhere, Sun Wolf knew, the cold little business mage was stretching forth his dark hand, locked in the grip of a magic trance, sitting in the predawn shadows of the half-burned room which had been Ari's, rocking back and forth among the burned curtains of the bed, whispering the words that never quite surfaced in Sun Wolf's consciousness-the words of weakness, of defeat, of subservience to his will. But that Sun Wolf knew only abstractly.

  What he knew, what he saw, what he felt, was the darkness all around him, the darkness within his own body and mind-the darkness where the dark hand twisted and clutched and dragged at the strands of spell that cut his every nerve and bone like heated wire. He could feel, could smell almost, Purcell's mind holding on to his, and hated it like an animal hating the smell of death.

  And within him, around him, as if he burned in a halo of roaring black flame, the earth magic consumed his mind.

  He was only dimly aware that he knelt still on the slime of the mine shaft's floor. His senses were magnified, screaming out of proportion to anything he had known; every pebble was a knife blade, stabbing the flesh of his knees, every crease in the leather of his breeches and fold of his shirt where his doublet pressed it tight to his flesh dragged like a binding rope; Ari's footsteps and Starhawk's, retreating away on the surface overhead, ground through his bones and entrails, and he fought not to scream with pain and blind rage. The earth magic had risen through his hands, through the ground, and through the chalked rings on the tunnel floor, pouring over him and through him like a pounding torrent of blackness, ripping free the guy wires of his soul until he felt his mind flapping like a tent in unnamable winds. Only by clenching his mind like a bunched fist of light on the center of his being could he remember who he was and why he had wanted this power in the first place; and at that center, gripped with the grip of his life, was the geas.

  The gouge of Moggin's returning stride was agony; the smell of the man-like his own a foul compound of reeking old sweat, unwashed linen, cooking grease, manhood, and filth-mixed nauseatingly with the stench of the guttering torch, the foetor of the stagnant water a few feet away, and the terrifying breath of the unseen things that dwelled beneath its surface. Mind screaming, raw, he lurched to his feet and swung around, Moggin's face a barely recognized tangle of shapes, flesh, and hair, and the skull underneath, and the soul beneath that, in the howling blaze of torchlight and darkness.

  Moggin held out his hands, not initiating the shock of contact; after a second the Wolf reached out and touched them, the blood scalding under the ridgy squishiness of the fragile flesh. The rage in him, the barely contained madness of the earth magic's fire, whispered that he could rip this man to shreds with his hands, as he could rip himself or anything else that came near him, and Purcell's geas coiled and pressed, like a clutching black tapeworm, in reply. Moggin whispered, "Can I get you anything?" as if he were aware how all the world, the wind overhead, and the feint drip of water shrieked and dinned and pounded into his senses.

  His mouth numb, he only gestured the torch away and, turning, stumbled toward the water. The thought of the water and of the things that his senses told him dwelled deep within it terrified him, but he needed to scry with something, and the thought of looking into the fire was more than he could endure.

  He could barely stagger; Moggin had to take his arm and lead him to kneel at the stagnant pool's edge. "Do you want to be alone?" he whispered.

  "NO!" The word came out an inarticulate snarl-Sun Wolf seized him, crushing his arm in his berserker grip. Then, forcing back the madness of the pain, forcing back the howling magic, he eased his grip, and shook his head. He wanted to say Stay with me. Please. But the madness had rendered him dumb.

  In the water he could see Starhawk. Part of him knew it was nonsense that she could have reached the walls of Wrynde already, but he could see her, slipping in and out through the broken ruins of what remained of the larger town, slipping through the crumbling brick archways of what had been its sewers and holding to the dense black shelter of decaying walls where dark pines forced apart the stones and streams roared sullenly through skeleton houses. By the light, he could sense that where she was it was approaching the first pallor of dawn, in truth several hours away ... or was it? Time seemed to have disappeared from his perceptions; he had no idea how long it had taken him to summon her image in the fetid depths. Maybe it was nearly dawn.

  The walls of Wrynde, looming above her against a wasted sky, looked pathetic and ineffectual. Ari's men could have taken them for sport in an afternoon. He remembered building those shabby turrets and gates, strengthening them and pointing out to the mayor where the weak spots were. Scorn them though they might, the Wolf had always known the value to the troop of the farmers and townsmen-the need for mules, for food, and for a place to go that wasn't the camp. It was he who'd ordered the worst of the ruins that surrounded the walls to be razed, to preclude just what the Hawk was doing now-sneaking up through the stones, stream cuts, and weeds unseen.

  The Hawk looked different, seen this way, through the lying medium of the water and the pounding blackness of the fire within-as if he could see both the scarred bony beauty of her, and the cool opal glints of her soul. Later he saw her again, in the earth-smelling lockup under the town hall, with the blood of two different guards-he didn't
know how he knew that-splattering the garish flounces of her dress and bodice. He saw the townsmen locked in the cells reaching through the bars to touch her hands, and the stink of their rage that came to him from them, even through the water, was overwhelming, like the crackle of new flames. The vision was silent, but he knew she spoke to them, calm and reasonable; in other days it had always been the Hawk rather than Ari who'd dealt with the Town Council in their endless squabbles with the troop. He saw her reach down to take the key from the body of a dead guard. The men were arming themselves as the image faded to darkness.

  He became more aware of Purcell's strength, the geas swelling black and fat in his brain; the grip of the dark hand pulled tighter. The earth magic's colorless wildness filled him, holding Purcell's will at bay as he stumbled to his feet. His numb knees gave, the pain of the blood rushing back to circulate again in an unexpected hammer blow. Moggin caught him as he stumbled, but after a moment, with a queer, slow deliberation which seemed to take minutes, he shook loose those steadying hands.

  Painfully, slowly, fighting to control the frenzy of madness on the one hand and the agonizing drag of the geas on the other, he began to scrape from the wet earth of the floor all the marks of power and protection that he had drawn. The magic flowing into the new circles of power that he drew, the Circles of Light and Darkness, the curves of strength and guard, and the clean powers of the air, frightened him. He felt the momentum of the earth magic behind everything he did, like swinging a weighted weapon only barely within his control. Yet he felt exultant, filled with a wild rage and madness held barely in check; he laughed, and saw Moggin draw back from the staring gold of his eye.

  It was just before sunrise when word reached the camp that the men of Wrynde whom they had taken for slaves had broken loose and were slaughtering their guards. Sun Wolf couldn't see it clearly, meditating again on the black waters of the pool, for nothing he could do would enable him to see into the camp itself. As if he stood on a distant hill, he could see the gates and the road that led to them, a twisted skein of yellow-gray mud and glittering silver. He could see the man riding along it full tilt, though it seemed to him no faster than a walk, could see the blood splattered on his hands and clothing and hair. He had been more and more aware of Purcell's strength, dragging at him as the hours had passed. Now it slacked, the relief from the pain as intense as pain itself. He smiled. Someone must have called the mage and broken his concentration. Time, he thought grimly. All I need is time ...

  In time, he saw the relief party emerge from the gates.

  Louth was leading them, huge and chunky on a galled and unkempt bay gelding. They were more numerous than he'd expected, and heavily armed. Evidently Zane wasn't yet aware of how many of the men who'd pledged their loyalty to him had vanished in the ensuing twenty-four hours. Nor, apparently, had it occurred to him that a riot in Wrynde might be a diversion to draw troops into just such a sortie. It would make more work for Ari, he thought distantly, watching as the horses pounded through the churned muck of the road. But it meant less men holding the gates.

  Then he turned his mind away. From the bottom of his soul-hollowed, screaming, a black and billowing universe of wildness-he called up the memory of the glowing sign he'd seen written on the money paid for Vorsal's ruin, and gave his whole being to the magic of ill.

  Like silk streaming through his hands he felt the power of it, and his ability to turn it here and there as he willed. Not small things this time, he thought. Not a matter of bread unrisen, of a thrown horseshoe or a snapped lute string. There was no time for the slow grinding of a thousand little misfortunes. He saw now, or felt through his skin, that what was needed was the great ills, rising wherever the money was or whatever it had touched within the walls of the camp: fire in straw, in bedding, in roof thatch; a healthy man's bowels loosening in agonizing flux; doors jamming tight; floors that had formerly only creaked collapsing in splintering shards; beams and posts and overhead shelves giving way; horses spooked and running wild; the rage and accusation engendered by one final straw, one last indignity or insult or fancied slight, breaking loose in murder ...

  Curse you, he thought, remembering the fair-haired girl dead in the barren garden, Starhawk and the child on her back falling under the crumbling of the burning wall, that boy Miris whom he hadn't even known screaming as he pitched off his frantic horse's back into the seething red-black carpet of ants. Curse you, curse you, curse you ... Like a falcon riding the thermals, he saw from high above the uneven stone circle of the camp, a piebald blot of color in the colorless hills, no bigger than a piece of money. He reached with his hand into the water and picked it up like a piece of money. And on that circle, that piece, he traced the mark he had seen.

  As a warrior he had never fought in hate, but he hated now.

  The pressure of the geas slacked and eased. Purcell, for the moment, had other things to think about.

  He got stiffly to his feet. The agony of madness eased for a moment, allowing him to speak, his words thick as a drunkard's.

  "Let's go," he said.

  CHAPTER 17

  He met Ari on the stony ruin of road that ran between Wrynde and the camp, rising from the heather before them like the mad ghost of a demon bear. The men sent up a cheer when they saw him, the noise of it tearing him, kindling rage again and berserker wildness in the madness of the magic that gripped him, even as did the colorless glare of the overcast daylight and the clawed gash of the wind. He held enough control over his own mind to raise his fist to them in his old gesture of triumph and shut his eye in pain as their cheering redoubled. Only Ari, in the black-painted mailshirt of one of the bandit mercs, looked askance at the mad gold eye staring from its bruised hollow beneath the tattered hair; and Starhawk, now in hauberk and breeches again and looking as if she'd been skinning men for her living from the age of five, began to dismount, shocked concern in her face.

  He could not speak, but waved her violently back. Between the savagery of the earth magic and the brutal drag of the geas in him, he dared not try to speak to her, dared not remember that he was glad to see she'd done her part in freeing Wrynde without getting killed. He felt like a man holding two maddened stallions on leading reins, who, at a false step or a break in attention, would rend him to pieces. He tried not to think about how long there was of this yet to go.

  Dogbreath brought a horse for him and with Starhawk helped him mount. As in the water and as when he had looked at Moggin in the firelight, neither of them looked quite as they had, as if he could see their bones, their viscera, all surrounded by pale colored fire. Deep down, part of him hoped they'd understand when he did not acknowledge them, hoped they'd all live long enough for him to apologize and explain. He managed to wave to Moggin, left in the desolation of wet bracken and stone, coughing as if his lungs would shred within him as the cavalcade spurred away. Before them, above the hills which hid the camp, white smoke had already begun to rise.

  As they passed the broken foundations of the watch-towers which had once guarded the gap in those hills, the Wolf became aware of Ari's men, lying stretched in the heather all around them and waiting the signal to storm the walls. They were hidden, invisible in the landscape as he had taught them to make themselves invisible, but now he smelled them like a beast, the fetid stench of them choking him, and saw the foxfire of their thoughts dancing above the heather which hid their bodies.

  And at the same time, as Ari's riders mounted the little rise and saw the stumpy granite knoll with its ragged wall and boxlike turrets, he felt the earth magic in him give and shift, its madness slacking as deep down in the bowels of his soul he felt pain begin.

  Some instinct told him that this was the beginning of its end.

  God's Grandmother, not NOW!

  The camp gates were shut when they reached them. Hog-who, without his beard and in Louth's armor, actually did look a little like the now-deceased Louth-bellowed, "Open the goddam gates!"

  The man in the turret above yelled b
ack, "The motherless counterweight's jammed! You'll have to come in through the postern!"

  "Nice hex," Ari snarled as they dismounted and crowded forward.

  The small man-door in the gates was flung open; the guard there said, "By the Queen of Hell's corset, it seems like everything's gone ... " His face changed as he registered who was in the gateway with him, but he hadn't time to make a sound before Ari cut his throat with a backhand slash that nearly took off the head. Blood sprayed everyone in the narrow way, and suddenly men were converging on them from all over the square beyond.

  With an inarticulate bellow of desperation and rage, Sun Wolf jerked the gate guard's sword free of its scabbard and plunged into the ensuing fray.

  Behind him he could hear yelling, as the narrowness of the postern door trapped the attackers or tripped them over its high sill. Ari and Hog drove in after the Wolf, trying to clear the narrow passage of the gate before reinforcements could arrive, but more and more men crowded in from the open square of the camp, all yelling wildly for help. The low stone ceiling groins picked up the roar of the seething, shouting, hacking mob and amplified it to a skull-splitting bellow. The smell of opened flesh and spilled blood, of confusion and rage and fright, flayed Sun Wolf's mind as the dark magic within him transmuted slowly to agony, as if the power in him were clawing holes in his flesh in its efforts to get out. He fought desperately to clear a way into the camp before the earth magic deserted him, howling his battle yell and yet fighting coldly, instinctively, with all the long training and skill of his life.

  From beyond the squat arch of the gate toward which he struggled, he could smell burning and hear a chaos of shouts. He had the impression of horses rushing here and there beyond the packed mob that now filled the gate passage, of men breaking off their pursuit of them to get weapons and join the fighting, of other fights everywhere in the camp, and of furious yelling and the crash of falling wood. Even as he parried, thrust, severed hands, and opened the shrieking faces before him, he sensed a vast, boiling chaos all around them in the camp, and his stripped senses, above the immediate storm of fear and stress and battle rage, picked up such a confusion of blind hate and resentful violence that his mind felt torn to pieces, and he found himself screaming like a madman as he fought.