EXILED: Lord of Cragsclaw

by Bill Fawcett

  The liskash had invaded the dreams of Cragsclaw.

  Mithmid had told neither Reswen nor Sleisher of his sighting of the armies of the east. Like Lorleen, he thought the knowledge best kept quiet, at least until the threat from the west could be countered. In Sleisher’s case, his motives were simple: Mithmid did not want him to know he was a wizard.

  Now he wondered if he had done right.

  He rose over the thick stone walls that spanned the valley, flying hard toward the west. Miles away he saw the clamor of battle, as two foes clashed with fire in the night. When he reached that spot he recognized one of the two. Keth Sleisher led his sable-robed warriors against an enemy whose backs were almost back against the mountainside.

  For a short time he flew, trying to discover the enemy. A disparate collection of fighters these were, some in the attire of the highlands, others in the manner of the grasslands, still others large, strong mrem from villages high in the mountains. Arrows rained down on them from above, and swords assailed them from their flanks. Whoever they were, they could not hold out for long.

  Then he sensed the magic.

  It emanated from a cave in the side of the mountain. Unseen and yet strong, it seemed to reach out toward the warriors and hold them in a kind of thrall, forcing them to hold their lines long after normal armies would have broken rank and fled. Somehow, too, it protected the warriors. In the full time he watched, Mithmid saw none of Keth’s enemies die.

  He flew to the cave’s entrance and tried to enter. But something held him back. Testing the unseen barrier with his mind, he found a ward of impenetrability strung across the doorway. Stronger by far than the spells of enthrallment that held the warriors, the ward was far too well-cast for Mithmid to break, especially in his state of mindflight. He knew, though, that he could break the enthrallment itself.

  Cragsclaw needed the return of Sleisher’s son. And it needed, with that return, all the warriors Keth could muster. By breaking the spell, Mithmid could solve both problems. Keth Sleisher would be free to return, and with luck he would bring with him a wealth of captured foes. Once inside Cragsclaw, these foes would fight for Ar.

  And so Mithmid, Wizard of Ar and of Cragsclaw, raised his hands and spoke the spell of breaking. Nothing happened. Mithmid was shocked. The spell he had used was one of the simplest, yet most potent, he knew. Mithmid needed more power. Then he saw it: two glowing lights of power, untrained power, but energy he could tap. Cautiously the wizard wove that raw power into his spell. When finished, he was amazed at the strength the unknown sources contributed. The wizard struck again, this time with all the gathered might. Against this overwhelming force, the strange resistance crumbled. The spy and wizard should have been pleased, but something felt wrong. Then a page arrived with a summons and he had no time to ponder the feeling.

  Seconds later and many days’ travel away, the foes of Keth Sleisher shattered the night with their screams,

  Out of the cave leaped a gold-robed mrem, the dark fur on his arms and face rendering him almost invisible in the dim light. With a host of short commands he drew together a line of his mrem, then looked above him to the archers on the mountainside. Pushing his way down toward the wagons, he ordered the tops of the barrels removed, then with another series of commands he had them taken to the battling line of warriors.

  “Hold them above your heads,” the darkfur shouted. “Hold them until I give the command.”

  They did so, shielding themselves from the downpour of arrows. Mithmid stared for a moment in awe. These barrel tops were shielding the mrem from their enemies’ weapons in a way he had never seen. Certainly the armies of Ar had never used shields larger than a hand in battle. They would hamper dodging. When he looked back at the darkfur, he found himself suddenly filled with a brand-new respect.

  Now the darkfur ran from warrior to warrior, speaking some words into each ear he came to. Mithmid could not hear the words, but he saw their effect. In every case, the warrior nodded briefly, stood as tall as he could, and looked out defiantly against the black-robed force that Keth Sleisher led against him. Then the darkfur disappeared into the cave.

  When he emerged, he carried a woman. Limply from his arms she hung, her arms flung toward the ground and her head rolling from side to side. “Look at her!” Talwe ordered. “See what Sleisher has done to her.” As the warriors turned to look, Mithmid could see their faces grow in determination. “Sleisher has not killed her,” the darkfur said. “But now she is worse than dead.”

  The warriors screamed a cry of defiance.

  The darkfur raised a cry to the heavens. Echoing it, they charged down the hill, scattering Keth and the swordsmrem with him. But the darkfur was not with them. He stood unmoving on the hill. The only movement was the wind rippling across his fur. Then there was a glint near his eye and a tear fell.

  And in that moment, Mithmid flew closer to where the darkfur stood. Peering down from above, he looked into the female’s face, and he saw with horror the madness that pierced her brain. But worse than all, worse even than the knowledge that he had done this to her, was his sudden knowledge of who this woman was.

  When Mithmid had destroyed the spell of enthrallment, he had destroyed Felior of the Council as well.

  •

  The battle is over.

  But I lost something in it.

  I cannot hate, Inla.

  My hatred has fled.

  I am numb. Numb at the sight of my warriors dying, frozen inside at the sight of the madness of Rhesa, who has shown me love.

  Numb, even, at the thought of Morian.

  I will go to Cragsclaw, Inla, because there I may find the answers I seek. From there I will take vengeance on the black-robed warriors who have destroyed Rhesa, and vengeance also on the mrem who defiled Morian.

  Then I will find my White Dancer once more.

  But something has left me, Inla. Something strong, something I felt was mine.

  Once I was fierce with love, but did not know it.

  Then I was fierce with hatred. And I reveled in it.

  Now I am not fierce at all.

  I am weak, Inla. Weaker than you have ever seen me. I weep now for mrem who trust me, but now I must lead them to where most will die. Perhaps Cragsclaw will be my last stop as well. There, perhaps, I will die. I do not fear dying. Though I must take my revenge first. Though I am no longer sure why I must.

  I have no home.

  Love is not allowed me.

  And now I can hate no more.

  THE WARRIORS were returning, tired but exultant. They had met the worst Keth Sleisher could hand out and survived, even won. Half a dozen prisoners, their hands tied and feet hobbled, were led into a cave whose entrance Talwe ordered blocked with branches from thorn bushes. Watching his mrem chatter as they entered the caves, Talwe wondered that his ploy had worked. Certainly his warriors had not wanted Rhesa among them, especially since her main task seemed to be keeping them from him. But when he showed them her body, with its eyes rolling upward and its neck shaking back and forth, they rallied behind her as if she had been their leader.

  In a way, maybe she had been.

  Paralan had done a good job of organizing. But he would do nothing without Talwe’s consent, and the warriors knew this. An order from Paralan, they understood, was an order from Talwe, and in that sense Paralan had merely been a kind of other self. When Rhesa came, though, she had started giving some of the lesser commands.

  He could only guess what effect this had had. Evidently, the mrem hadn’t liked it, but neither had they ever disobeyed. Rhesa was far from stupid, doing her commanding through Paralan, thus indirectly through Talwe. But he sensed a confusion among the raiders from the moment of her arrival.

  And Talwe, in his state of overwhelming hatred, had done nothing to help.

  He shook his head now at the intensity of all those days. Hour
after hour he had brooded, plotting vengeance against Crethok and killing him over and over again in his mind and in his dreams. Rhesa had entered and changed all that, had struggled for days to bring him out of himself. For a while she had failed, but at last she had broken through. Talwe, though, had been unwilling to admit it.

  So unwilling, in fact, that when Rhesa was attacked they had been in conversation and he had been lying as to what he felt, even to himself. She had had part of her mind on him, and only part on her magic. Had she been free to concentrate on her magic, perhaps the attack wouldn’t have shattered her. But Talwe had been a distraction when she had needed desperately to concentrate on her spells.

  Now she was paying for his selfishness. Rhesa, whom he had lain with as if she were Morian, whom he had tried to torture with his refusal to acknowledge her help, now lay on her back in the cave, a thick fur blanket covering her sweating body. She breathed hard at times, at other times not at all. For all Talwe knew she might be dying.

  Hovering in the darkness at the back of that same cave floated a shimmering vision, visible only in the corner of the bandit leader’s eye. It waited in the back of the cave until Talwe sat with his back to the entrance. Then it drifted quickly forward and from it sprang a light of soft, deep blue. The fist-sized light played across the contorted face of the dreaming woman. Talwe, afraid to move or interfere, watched in awe and disbelief. He could sense that this was something new; the only visions he had ever known had been visions inside the most terrible of nightmares. This one, though, did nothing to frighten him.

  Then it spoke to him, or at least it made his mind hear its words, pleading to be allowed to care for the woman. It called itself Mithmid, a magician from the great city, if Talwe had heard correctly, but what struck the darkfur was the fear and anxiety that came from the insubstantial voice. Whatever this vision was, his concern for Rhesa seemed both great and genuine.

  The shadow did not call her Rhesa, though. Felior was the name he gave the woman, and Talwe wondered if it was her true name. If so, then she had been lying to him, as he had suspected but been unable to guess why. If not, then Mithmid was not who he claimed to be. Neither case was a good one, and Rhesa would have much to explain.

  If she lived, that is.

  Talwe asked about the soft blue light. Slowly and carefully, as if conserving what energy he could, the vision explained how the light would protect the woman against the backlash of the spells she had cast; it would act almost like the fur of an animal that kept one’s body from the cold. Talwe nodded, and the voice stopped. When he asked, finally, what was wrong with her, the voice had quieted almost to a whisper. And the answer, or what there was of it, was strange and difficult to follow. If it made any sense at all, Talwe missed it completely.

  There was another mrem in that cave, but he was saying nothing. Keth, Sleisher’s son of Cragsclaw, leaned heavily against the wall to Talwe’s left, his arms and legs tied with rope and the rope itself tied to a metal stake that had been driven into the rock. In the battle’s last moments he had led a desperate countercharge, trying to free a force of thirty trapped Cragsclavians. It had worked, surprising Talwe’s mrem totally, but Sleisher had fallen and his warriors had left him behind. Talwe had ordered him brought to the cave, where now he sat with eyes half closed. From the matted fur and size of the lump on the side of his skull, Talwe guessed the young noble’s head throbbed without mercy. He started at the blue light, but when Talwe didn’t react sat quietly.

  “Will she live?” Keth asked.

  “I don’t know,” was Talwe’s reply. “A vision I have says he is healing her. I don’t trust him, but I have no cure myself.”

  Sleisher dropped his head to his left shoulder. “Who is the vision?” he questioned. “He is hard to see.”

  “Yes,” came the answer. “It is easier to see the blue shadow he casts over Rhesa’s face. He calls himself Mithmid, and he says he comes from Ar. He is a magician there, if his words are true.”

  Nodding his agreement, Keth confirmed that there had been a wizard named Mithmid at Cragsclaw. Then his voice rose as he turned to watch the fallen wizardess. “If he isn’t, then I will never believe my eyes again.”

  Rhesa had begun to move. At first she rolled one way and then the other. Finally on her stomach, she raised herself onto her knees and then stood crouching as she tried to raise her arms above her head. But suddenly her legs began to shake, and she dropped hard to the rock floor. When Talwe crawled over beside her, he saw drops of blood covering almost all her face.

  “She is asleep,” the vision said. “The first evil has passed.”

  “Will there be others?” the darkfur asked.

  “Yes,” was the answer. “But I do not know when or where.”

  “I will take her with me to Cragsclaw,” Talwe said aloud. “There someone will help her.”

  Sleisher’s eyes widened and he watched the bandit warily. “Why are you going to Cragsclaw?” he demanded.

  Talwe hesitated before he replied. At last he said, “I was told that there I would find the one I seek. I was told that there I would find a warrior named Crethok.”

  “Crethok?” Keth spat out. “In Cragsclaw?”

  “Earlier it was revealed to me that he would march on Cragsclaw,” Talwe intoned. “For weeks I have gathered the force I would need to kill him. Now I am prepared to take the vengeance that is mine. Crethok has wronged me, and Crethok must die.”

  Keth nodded vigorously. “If what you say is true, darkfur,” he observed ruefully, “then we are not enemies after all. It seems we have been fighting when we should have been working together. Why did you choose to become a bandit instead of seeking us out?”

  “Would you have accepted as your own the needs of a banished hunter?”

  Sleisher once more nodded.

  “And I fight my own battles,” Talwe ended proudly. This pale noble had been trying to kill or capture him for weeks, and he should be hating him. Instead, Talwe found he admired him for being a competent opponent in spite of his youth.

  Almost as if agreeing, Keth Sleisher replied in equally proud tones.

  “I, too, am after Crethok, as is my father. The highland clans have long been Cragsclaw’s enemy, and he leads the worst of them. We thought you were one of his clansmrem.”

  “No,” said Talwe almost in a whisper. “I am only Talwe. I am not like Crethok.”

  A barely audible voice in their minds interrupted them. “I cannot stay,” the vision insisted, “my power is almost drained. Go to Cragsclaw and I will wait. You will find me there.” Then the soft light left Rhesa’s face, and the cave turned dark once more.

  Talwe looked at his captive. “How can I trust you?” he asked slowly. “Have we not just fought?”

  “Mistakenly,” replied Sleisher. “You were a mystery. We thought you a highlander and a bandit.”

  “And I am still a bandit,” Talwe observed.

  “Not if the Lord Sleisher pardons you all,” Keth countered. “There will be a few screams from the merchants, but probably less than the last time we raised taxes. After all, you will have to stop raiding their caravans.”

  Shaking his head, the darkfur stood up and said, “You will come with me, and so will the other black-robes we have taken. But I will not let you walk free. When we come to Cragsclaw, it may be that your story will be proven. If not....”

  “Don’t say more,” the other interrupted. “There will be no ‘if not.’ I will gladly walk as a captive, if it will help Cragsclaw against Crethok. If there is evil to be found in this land, darkfur, we will find much of it in Crethok of the highlands. More than once strange magics have assisted him as well. That is why we thought you to be one of his clansmrem. If he reaches Cragsclaw ahead of us, I’m not sure even when the rest of my mrem return that my father can hold out against him. And he will think me lost.” The last was said with true concer
n in his voice. For an instant Talwe was jealous that the two would care for each other so strongly. Then he made the feeling stop. He was getting soft and clouded by emotions just when he would need every bit of his strength to destroy Crethok.

  •

  When they left in the morning, it was storming. The wind raged down from the snow-covered peaks, occasionally showering everyone with tiny ice crystals. After a long summer’s ending, winter had arrived. The mrem in the band protested, but Paralan got them going with a combination of threats and the promise of a pardon. Talwe didn’t know how the mrem knew of Keth’s offer, but was glad to see there had been little protest.

  Each bandit was loaded with a pack heavy with loot and supplies. The prisoners too were forced to carry food and tenting. They kept looking to Keth Sleisher as if waiting for him to give some order. He stayed politely silent, judging the mrem who had captured him. The bulkier items they had taken were hidden in one cave and the entrance concealed. Talwe and Sleisher walked side by side along the now empty roads. To their left the mountains blocked the fury of the wind, but not far ahead the songomores bent almost double. Yet through it all, Rhesa, on a litter inside a small cart pulled by a shivering uxan, burned. Her skin was almost painful to touch. Not even the cold winds of the harsh winter storm cooled her. Paralan stayed nearby, his presence seeming to soothe the unconscious wizardess.