Exile's Challenge

by Angus Wells

  Exile’s Challenge

  PART TWO OF THE EXILES SAGA

  “We can never go back to all we knew, to our old lives.”

  “Would you?” Flysse eyed him with amazement. “I’d not. We’ve a new life before us.”

  “Yes.” Arcole nodded slowly, cautiously. “But it shall not be easy.”

  “Nor was our escape,” she said. “Nor would have been life in the wilderness. We are fortunate, Arcole! We are safe from the Autarchy and the demons both; we are amongst good, friendly folk. How can you look so glum?”

  “I suppose I’m afraid.”

  Davyd heard the last and chuckled. “Afraid? You know no fear, Arcole. And what’s to be afraid of here?”

  He looked at the young man and felt his smile grow genuine.

  “Nothing,” he answered, and shrugged. “Save that I’m a stranger in a strange land.”

  EXILE’S CHALLENGE

  A Bantam Spectra Book

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Bantam trade paperback edition published December 1996

  Bantam rack edition/January 1998

  SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1996 by Angus Wells.

  Cover art copyright © 1996 by Stephen Youll.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-27959.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Bantam Books.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-57463-3

  Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: Another Time, Another Place

  Chapter 2: Sanctuary

  Chapter 3: Welcome Friends

  Chapter 4: Lessons

  Chapter 5: Another Country

  Chapter 6: Like Coming Home

  Chapter 7: The Inquisitor

  Chapter 8: Frightened City

  Chapter 9: Ungentle Persuasion

  Chapter 10: March, or Die

  Chapter 11: The Owh’jika’s Warning

  Chapter 12: A Choice Is Offered

  Chapter 13: Dangerous Dreaming

  Chapter 14: Fight to Survive

  Chapter 15: A Man Possessed

  Chapter 16: A Certain Power

  Chapter 17: Strangely, in the Night

  Chapter 18: Rescue

  Chapter 19: Accusations

  Chapter 20: To the Hills

  Chapter 21: Matakwa

  Chapter 22: The Chase

  Chapter 23: Under the Hill

  Chapter 24: To the Old Land

  Chapter 25: Dangerous Journey

  Chapter 26: Ghost Winter

  Chapter 27: Strange Meetings

  Chapter 28: Chaos

  Chapter 29: Out of the Woods and …

  Chapter 30: Choices

  Chapter 31: The Fire, Far Away

  Chapter 32: Sacrifice

  Chapter 33: The Terror Again

  Chapter 34: Downstream

  Chapter 35: Fire and Water

  Chapter 36: Into the Fire

  Chapter 37: Encounter

  Chapter 38: The Last Chance

  Chapter 39: The Last Battle

  Chapter 40: Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  1

  Another Time, Another Place

  The savage roaring of the Breakers’ weirdling beasts echoed like frustrated thunder off the hills surrounding the Meeting Ground. Through that chorus, and rising higher-pitched above it, the dread riders sang their own blighted hymn, an ululation of thwarted bloodlust. From the trees surrounding the great expanse of meadow, birds frightened by the horrid threnody took flight, adding their own alarm-songs to the cacophony, and in the farther hills wolves howled, and coyotes. The night filled up with noise, rang in horrid lamentation, as the Breakers vented their disappointment on the bodies of the slain, mutilating the corpses of fallen warriors, or gifting them to their mounts like playthings to huge and vicious kittens.

  It seemed, in that time the Breakers came down onto the grass of the Meeting Ground and found the People gone, that in all Ket-Ta-Witko only the Maker’s holy mountain and the full moon of the Turning Year stood serene, allied in their defiance of the invaders. The moon silvered the grass—where it was not stained dark with blood—and the holy mountain towered white and dispassionate over all. Where the great arch of light had stood, the Maker-given gateway through which the last of the People had escaped, there was now only trampled ground. Of the People, and their horses and their dogs and their lodges, of the Grannach and all their possessions, nothing remained: they had gone away to another place, another time. Morrhyn’s promise was fulfilled.

  And the Breakers shrieked in dismay and frustration, their own promise of conquest and destruction denied them, their lust beaten like floodwater washed against immutable stone. Some, maddened by defeat, struck at one another; some turned their blades on themselves, drawing the blood they craved from their own bodies. They were not accustomed to defeat, these reivers of worlds: their habit was annihilation unthinking, massacre, and the overturning of everything stable; anything that was not them.

  Then a clarion sounded, cutting like a knife through the tumult, and even before the echoes came back from the hills, silence fell. Riders fought their strange mounts to stillness; blades were sheathed, and the self-mutilators wiped at their wounds and sat their beasts and waited.

  From the northern perimeter, where the Commacht had held the cliffs and the fighting had been fiercest, a figure armored magnificently in gold rode down. Curved spikes thrust like defiant talons from the armor, the gauntlets ended in vicious claws, and sharp-edged wings extended batlike from the helmet that concealed the rider’s face. A great sword hung on chains from the waist, its bloodred scabbard rattling against the skulls that decorated the saddle, which in turn sat upon a mount no human creature had ever ridden. It was unlike the other Breakers’ beasts, for it wore the delineaments of a horse, only larger, and with a hide of midnight blue. Horns sprouted from its red-eyed skull and about its flaring nostrils, and its snarling mouth exposed fangs no mortal horse had ever owned. Its muscular form was somewhat disguised by the plates—gold, like its rider’s armor—that decorated the chest and neck and cruppers, and as its clawed hooves pranced across the grass, they seemed to leave imprints of flame that matched the exhalations of its breath. It was not so large as the lion-mounts, but as it drew near they pawed the ravaged ground and bowed their heads and mewled acknowledgment of this beast’s superiority.

  Nor less their riders of the golden-armored figure. They parted silently, shaping a pathway down which the two came as if in bitter triumph to where the arch of light had stood. None spoke as the rider halted the obscene, horned horse and the helmeted head bowed in slow contemplation of the ground, all tracked and trampled on the one side and on the other nothing, save where Breakers had been.

  The helmet rose, turning in the direction of the Maker’s Mountain. The sam
e moon that lit the great peak bathed the armor in its bright light, but the golden plates appeared to absorb that radiance and dull it and change it, so that the armor, instead of shining, seemed to throb with a fiery life, as if its wearer stood before a blaze, or the metal ran with blood beneath its surface. It was as if the figure defied all natural laws, defied even the Maker.

  Slowly, the wickedly clawed gauntlets lifted to the helmet’s latchings and raised the pot. The rider shook his head, flinging loose a great spill of long, darkly golden hair. It seemed to glow redly, as if fire danced about the handsome face. And was it fire, then it was matched and met by the glow of his eyes, which burned bright and savage as his steed’s, as if blasphemous furnaces burned inside his skull, fueled by the blood of all his slaughtered victims. He cradled the helm against his armored thigh and tugged the horned horse’s reins so that the creature danced and snorted.

  “They have denied us our prize.”

  His voice was deep, a musical bass that carried over the Meeting Ground almost as if he sang the words. In the hills, the wolves ceased their howling; the coyotes ended their calling; all the birds fell still. It was if his voice imposed some dreadful and obscene order.

  Into that silence he said, “They have escaped us.”

  He spun his mount around, clawed hooves scratching up great sprays of dirt, the beast snarling.

  “None have escaped us before. None!”

  He slowed his mount’s circling, lowered his head a moment, then raised it up to fix the waiting horde with a smoldering gaze that only a few dared meet.

  “This is not the way. We are the Breakers, we are the unmakers of worlds. We are the dark side of light, the shadows that haunt men’s dreams when they think of betrayal and dishonor. We are created to punish sin: we destroy. But …” He shook his head and it seemed that tears the color of blood escaped his eyes. “We have failed our duty here. These cringing things escaped us. How could that be?”

  Armor rattled, paws scraped; all nervously: no answer came.

  “Will none answer me?”

  He turned his awful horse around its slowly prancing circle again, red eyes like torches on the horde.

  And one replied: “They owned magic, Akratil. Great magic.”

  “Ah!” He halted the horned horse, facing the speaker, wide mouth parting in a smile. “Bemnida alone has the courage to say it. Come forward, Bemnida.”

  The speaker hesitated and Akratil nodded encouragingly, beckoning, still smiling. A lionbeast pushed from the throng. Its rider wore armor the color of a summer sky, her hair the pale gold of the summer sun. Her lovely face was delicately beautiful, marred only by the cuts she had carved across her cheeks and nose. Blood still oozed from those, and her pale gray eyes were stormy with frustration. She halted her mount before Akratil and urged the beast to kneel, her own head bowed.

  Akratil said, “Rise up, Bemnida. It seems that only you of all my followers have the courage to speak the truth.”

  Bemnida raised her head and obeyed, urging her mount on until it stood alongside his.

  “So, Bemnida,” he said gently, “tell me of this magic.”

  Bemnida looked a moment confused. Akratil smiled at her, and motioned that she speak.

  She licked a thread of blood from her lips and said, “It was as if they knew of our coming and rallied against us.” Then paused, nervous under that red-eyed contemplation. “As if they owned such magic as warned them. And showed them how to escape.” She gestured at where the gate had stood.

  “Some did know of us. Those who’d hear us and take our way, whose ambition chooses the dark path.” Akratil’s smile was feral, like a wolverine savoring a kill. “Some I … spoke with.”

  “Yes.” Bemnida ducked her head in agreement. “But the others, those we fought here … They knew. Why else did they gather here?”

  “Perhaps those little dwarvish folk warned them.”

  “How?” she asked. “What few we left alive were surely trapped in their tunnels, in the hills. How could they have brought word? They used no riding animals and this is a wide world—how could they have traveled so far in time?”

  Akratil nodded. “Indeed. So, how did the others know? Save they do own some scrying.”

  Bemnida, encouraged, said, “And more. Such magic as enabled them to fashion that gate and flee our wrath.”

  “And that,” Akratil said. “Which was surely great magic.”

  Bemnida nodded.

  “Great as mine?” asked Akratil.

  “No!” Bemnida shook her head vigorously, soft golden hair flying in a cloud about her bloodied face.

  Akratil spoke as if she had voiced no denial. “Great as that Power we serve?”

  Again Bemnida shook her head, her denial louder now. “How could that be? Is the day mightier than night? I say, no—that the darkness conquers light, and that we are the darkness of all the worlds’ light, and the Power we serve is surely the greatest of all.”

  “But they escaped us.” Akratil’s voice softened, a vocal caress, as if he whispered endearments to a lover. “We came to this world and have conquered all until now. Until we came through those hills and fought these folk. None others have stood against us, none others have escaped us.”

  Bemnida said nothing.

  Akratil said, “Think you some other Power aided them, Bemnida?”

  “It is not my place to say.” She bowed her head.

  Akratil reached out, setting a talon to her chin, raising her head until she looked into his eyes again. A droplet of bright blood welled from his touch, trickled unnoticed down her slender throat. “It would seem that you alone own the courage to speak, to think. And now that you have begun, I’d hear the rest.”

  Bemnida’s eyes flickered around. The surrounding horde stood silent, attentive as a wolf pack awaiting the kill. The moon was westered past the Maker’s Mountain now and shadows flung from the hills, the serried peaks bathed in patterns of silver and jet. Into the silence an owl hooted three times. Bemnida said slowly, “Perhaps there was a Power; perhaps they called on it.”

  “Perhaps.” Akratil chuckled softly. “After all, is there that Power we serve, why not another?”

  “Yes.” Bemnida essayed a smile that failed to reach her troubled eyes.

  “And that Power effected their escape?” Akratil said.

  Bemnida said, “I suppose it was so. How else could they flee?”

  “Save aided by a Power great as ours.” Akratil nodded thoughtfully. “Save aided by magic great as mine.”

  Bemnida sat on her strange mount in silence.

  Akratil said, “Which cannot be. There cannot be a Power greater than that we serve, nor magic greater than mine. Are we not that dark side of all beliefs—counterpoint to the feeble imaginings of the creatures we destroy—were we not created to reive worlds in dark judgment of betrayal and dishonor? Was it not dishonor and betrayal called us here?”

  “So it is,” Bemnida agreed, lowering her head. “It is as you say.”

  “Even so, they did escape us!” A man, torn-faced and bloody, urged his mount from the throng. He wore armor dented in battle, carmine in color. “And to me that suggests such a Power as Bemnida speaks of. Think on it, Akratil: are they protected by some Power equal to our own, then surely it were better we leave them go. We were never defeated before—only now—and we’ve not the means to chase them. I say we let them go.”

  Akratil said, softly, “Is that your true thought, Yuell? That we leave off our duty, forsake our honor?”

  Yuell shifted nervously in his saddle. His mount pawed the trampled ground. He said, “It is. You saw the gate they made, and you know we cannot follow them. Whatever Power guards them must surely be great as ours, and has closed that pathway.”

  Akratil said, “Perhaps,” and looked to Bemnida. “What think you?”

  “That we have a duty,” she said, “and can we pursue them, then we must.”

  “We lost many here!” Yuell gestured about the Mee
ting Ground. “Too many! I say we look to other worlds.”

  “I’d have these folk,” Akratil said, a gauntleted hand closing as if it crushed some soft thing. “I’d not so easily admit defeat, nor betray our cause.”

  “They’re gone!” Yuell argued. “We know not where—only that they are gone beyond our taking.”

  “How say you?” Akratil asked Bemnida.

  And she answered: “That you are our leader, and I shall follow you down all the roads of time and space, to all the worlds.”

  “Then kill me this upstart.”

  Bemnida’s blade swung clear of the scabbard in a fluid motion that delivered the edge to Yuell’s neck in a swift, sweeping arc that severed the skull from the body and sent it rolling across the grass.

  From the arteries of Yuell’s throat thick columns of blood fountained high, black in the moon’s light, lesser spoutings from the veins. His body jerked, dead hands tightening on his beast’s mane, so that the creature roared and bucked, tossing the corpse clear of the saddle. It landed heavy and still, the carmine armor all streaked with gore. The head came to rest against a tussock that held it staring sightlessly at Akratil, the blank, dead eyes fixed on his. The mouth was stretched wide in a rictal smile that seemed adoring.

  Akratil, too, smiled, and touched Bemnida fondly. “That was well done.”

  “Thank you.” Bemnida sheathed her blade, and gestured at the snarling lion-thing: “Calm it.”

  A Breaker whose armor was all jet black save for the crimson sigils on chest and back ran forward, bearing a long pike. He prodded the animal, shouting, and it ceased its rumblings and retreated slowly.

  “Take that away.” Akratil pointed at the corpse, the head. “Feed it to the animals.”

  He waited until that task was done, then faced the horde again and said, “There was magic employed here, that these folk escaped us. But there exists no magic greater than mine. Nor any Power greater than that we serve.”

  He danced his weird horse around, and from the horde came a great shout of agreement. He let it ring awhile, then raised a gauntlet, motioning his followers silent.