The Stricken Field - A Handful of Men Book 3

by Dave Duncan

  Saved!

  Thaile stood in a garden. The house beside it was an odd affair of woods and colored stones, alien and impractical, but curiously beautiful. All around it were sleeping flowers and drowsy trees and small ponds of fish. Within slept a man and a woman and two children, golden-haired and golden-skinned. Elves, the gold-haired demons . . . they did not look very demonic. Apart from their coloring and their silly little ears, they looked quite like pixies.

  There were other houses scattered around in the hills with people in them. By Thume standards the landscape was crowded, but it was rural compared to any other place she had seen Outside. A skytree towered heavenward very far off, its top glittering in the moonlight. Its base was below the horizon. She called up visions of the books she had browsed through. This was Ilrane, the land of the elves. Could Ilrane be the sanctuary she sought?

  “No,” the Keeper said at her back. “There is no safety here.”

  Thaile whirled and screamed aloud. “Go away!”

  The familiar tall shadow leaned on its staff and made a cackling noise like a rattle of bones. “You are a pixie. You are a freak! No one will offer shelter to a pixie. Pixies no longer exist, remember?”

  “Go away, or I smite you!”

  ”You will draw the usurper.”

  “Then I will draw the usurper!” She gathered power . . .

  ”You have seen him,” the Keeper’s mocking whisper said. Eyes glinted within her cowl. “You know his evil now. He will bind you, bind you forever. With you to serve him, the last hope dies. All will be his, to destroy.”

  “But you cannot bind me! Not that way! You have tried everything else, but that last obscenity is barred to you or you would use it. You cannot bind me to do what you will require of me—that which I will never do! Now be gone or I strike!” Thaile brandished power like a fiery sword and the Keeper faded away.

  Now even Ilrane was sullied by memory. Thaile went also.

  This time she was more careful. She was learning, mastering her skills, and she made sure that she remained unobserved. She headed west again, fascinated by the sinister song of dragons.

  As the night drew to an end, so did the land. Only Westerwater lay ahead of her, cold and lifeless. Rosy dawn lit the peaks of the Mosweeps, icy ramparts soaring above the downy clouds, and she sank down again, to watch the sun rise and to rest. Eventually she will exhaust herself and fall helpless from the sky . . .

  She sat on a snowy ledge above a pale abyss, hugging her knees and viewing the world of ice and white crags. It was cold, but it was clean. A sorceress could be quite comfortable where a mundane would freeze solid in seconds. She could see forever—see the dragons still questing northward, see the pillar of evil in the center. Probably she could even see Thume itself over the curve of the world if she tried, although she knew that Keef’s mighty sorcery would conceal the inhabitants from her.

  Hunger? She made a juicy-sweet mango, and a silver knife to cut it. When she had eaten the pulp, she turned the pit into a diamond as big as a pixie’s ear, and tossed it away in the snow. There were only two problems a puissant sorceress could not solve, and the greater of those was death.

  She remembered her few months with Leeb and the tears froze upon her cheeks. Keef and Is-an-Ok, Thraine and six or seven others since the world first turned, and now Thaile—she knew now she could evade the usurper as long as she was careful. Her power was great enough, greater than he would ever look for. She could go anywhere and do anything. But she could not call back Leeb, or her baby. She had nowhere to go and no one to love.

  The second problem was loneliness. The sun shone on all Pandemia.

  The world was hers and it was nothing.

  3

  Lord Umpily had just completed breakfast. The surroundings were somewhat bizarre—a filthy, cobweb-strewn stable littered with rubbish. Only a sickly gray light trickled through the little grimy windows, but better illumination might have spoiled his appetite. In the middle of this midden he sat at a damask-covered table laden with silver plate. The dishes contained scant remains of turbot, smoked sturgeon, roast venison, and an oyster-and-mussel omelette, but all of the excellent veal kidney pie had gone, and most of the warm, fresh loaf. He sipped at his goblet of porter, dabbed his lips with the crisp serviette, and reluctantly decided that he could eat no more. The surroundings might lack refinement, but he could not recall a more superb repast.

  The sorceress was still sitting where she had been when he drifted off to sleep some hours before dawn. For all he knew, she might not have moved all night. Her face was just as indistinct by daylight as it had been under the lantern. Two young men had joined the group and sat now in silence on the ladder-backed chairs. They wore doublet and hose, but Umpily strongly suspected that they were the two fake guardsmen who had abducted him from the ball. They, too, were impossible to make out clearly now. Nobody was speaking, but the three glanced at one another from time to time, and he was sure that they were conversing by sorcery.

  “His Omnipotence furnishes an excellent table,” he said cheerfully.

  No reply. No one even looked at him.

  He sighed, wondering where the warlock had gone. The niggling problem with the excellent table was that it was so reminiscent of the hearty last meal traditionally furnished to condemned prisoners of rank just before they were led out to execution.

  The door clicked, squeaked, squeaked again, and clicked shut. With a swirl of gray cloak, Warlock Olybino came striding in to join the meeting. He had discarded his gaudy armor and shed much of his size, although his face was still recognizable. He was apparently playing the role of a nondescript, middle-age artisan, but his bearing was much too arrogant. Who would tell him so?

  He glanced at the ruins on the breakfast table and shot Umpily a contemptuous glance. “Moderation is not your strong suit, my lord.”

  “Moderation insults perfection, your Omnipotence.” It was an old saying of Ishipole’s, but Umpily thought he had used it rather well.

  The warlock grunted and turned to his associates. Silence fell, but again a silence marked by glances and small gestures. Something was being discussed—and apparently something important, for Olybino suddenly turned on his heel and strode to the far end of the stable and then back again. In passing he reached out and lifted a rusty old horseshoe from a collection nailed to a pillar.

  Then he came to a halt, idly bending and flexing the metal in his hands as if it were rope, shedding a blizzard of rust flakes. “That is how it will be!” he snapped. “No further argument!” He spun around to face the solitary mundane. “The legions are advancing on the goblin horde at Bandon At least five legions, possibly six. I dared not look too closely. The dragons are almost upon them.”

  “Upon the legions?”

  The warlock nodded grimly. “I suspect that is the plan.”

  Umpily shuddered. “But why?”

  Seeming to apply no great effort, the warlock stretched the iron bar to twice its former length. “Who can plumb the horrors of the dwarf’s mind? I may be wrong, of course. A couple of dragons per legion would be ample, yet he has summoned almost every worm there is. Four blazes could waste Hub itself in half an hour. Why so many?”

  “I-I-I can’t imagine, sir.”

  “Nor L” Olybino tied the iron bar into a knot. “But I still think the legions are his target. Remember that only sorcerers know anything about him and his Covin. Only they know of his usurpation. So far as the mundane world is concerned, young Emshandar sits the Opal Throne and the Four rule in their palaces. Now comes the millennium. After a thousand years it will be dragons versus legions again! It almost happened at Nefer Moor, remember. That probably gave the poxy runt the idea. How will the Impire see such a battle?”

  It was obvious—South against East, warlock versus warlock.

  “He seeks to discredit the Four,” Olybino confirmed, scowling. ”One or two more disasters like that and he can throw off his cloak of secrecy. He will step forward as savior,
declaring that he has deposed the evil wardens. Then he will proclaim a new order.”

  He tossed the knotted metal away and wiped his hands. The former horseshoe clanged on the cobbles.

  Umpily hugged himself. “Is there nothing we can do?”

  “You, fat man?” The warlock glanced again at the empty dishes. “You might offer to create a famine for him.”

  “The genuine imperor found me useful in the past!” Why did that sound so sulky?

  “True,” Olybino admitted. He walked a few more paces, then returned and leaned his knuckles on the table. His eyes glittered. “What you told me last night was impressive. That faun has a flair for strategy! He found the only way to recruit a counterforce—that’s assuming that there are enough sorcerers still at large, which I doubt. Nor do I believe that his absurd idealistic new protocol would work in practice, not for a minute. But it makes a good rallying cry. In fact his plan is the only hope, so we may as well try it. The problem is to spread the word to the frees before the Covin hunts them down—which it continues to do.”

  “I will help in any way I can, sir.” Umpily could not bear to remember how he had been deceived by the fake Shandie. Sorcery or not, the humiliation was agony. He felt a burning need to redeem himself. He was ruefully aware that this remorse was out of character, and might fade in a day or two, but at the moment he was capable of anything . . . capable of considering anything.

  The warlock snorted. “The best thing you can do, I suspect, is to keep scribbling gossip in that diary of yours. Oh—you didn’t think I knew about that? Why do you suppose you so often happened to be present when I turned up to talk with Shandie?”

  He straightened and turned to his three minions. “Did you know you are in the presence of one of the great historians of Pandemia? Future ages will turn to his records whenever they need to know what the prince imperial had for breakfast on a particular day.”

  They smiled faintly at the mockery. The warden turned his threatening gaze back to Umpily. Even without his grandiose armor and bogus muscle, Olybino could still intimidate. Indeed, he had more dignity without such ostentatious fakery. Who would tell him that, either?

  “It is time to leave. We removed your spell of obedience. Do you want it replaced?”

  Umpily shivered and shook his head. His mouth was too dry for speech. Everything he had written in his memoirs for the last four months was rubbish!

  “Sure? You will be happier being deceived!”

  “I am sure,” Umpily croaked.

  Olybino chuckled. “Good for you. Very well. We shall put a shielding on you instead. That way you will not be taken in by the Covin’s illusions, and you will still have a visible sorcery on you. The Covin will assume it is the loyalty spell. Of course it will not withstand close scrutiny, so you must avoid attracting attention. When the dwarf learns what I have planned . . . Well, just say that very soon the little cave rat is going to be considerably out of sorts. He may go looking for scapegoats on whom he can vent his ill temper.”

  Horrors! Umpily shivered. “What must I do?”

  The warlock showed his teeth in a sinister smile. “Just watch! This is going to be a very interesting morning.” He turned to his votaries, his face suddenly grim. “What I must do now must be done quickly. I cannot give you very much time. Be on your way.”

  Apparently Umpily was already shielded from sorcery, for the three were no longer disguised. The two former guardsmen were recognizable again, although Umpily would not have known them had he not expected to. The tall one he recalled as a younger brother of Count Ipherio. The woman was the charming daughter of Senator Heolclue. She smiled at him; the two men nodded solemnly. They rose. Umpily heaved himself upright, also, with more effort than he had expected. Then the woman sank down on her knees on the cobbles, and the two men copied her.

  “The Good be with you, your Omnipotence!” she said, her voice breaking.

  “A soldier knows his duty,” the warlock snapped.

  The count’s brother raised clasped hands in appeal. “Master, let us stay and help, I beg you!” His eyes glistened with tears.

  “I told you there would be no more argument! Be off with you! Hub is no place for sorcerers now.” Olybino turned his back on them all, folding his arms. The three rose to their feet and headed for the door, with Umpily at their heels.

  4

  “Now will you tell me what’s going on?” Jalon inquired, his tone unusually petulant.

  “I’ll tell you one thing that been going on.” Rap took the wheel from the minstrel’s unresisting fingers. “We have been straying a mite off course, Helmsman.”

  Dreadnaught, in fact, was broadside to the weather and drifting aimlessly. Fortunately the wind was light and the waves were puny. No one would trust Jalon with the helm otherwise.

  “I was trying to find a rhyme for ‘whelk,’ “ he explained without a blush. “Forgot to watch the compass. Now, what is going on?”

  Rap grinned at him in disbelief. “Have you ever wandered out of the house in the morning without remembering to dress?”

  “Oh, yes!” Jalon looked surprised that his friend would even ask. ”Dozens of times.” He was apparently unaware that his present shirt was inside out. “Now, please, what is going on?”

  Rap studied the sails for a moment, taking the ship’s pulse. She was coming round slowly, turning her bowsprit to the dawn. He was coming around slowly himself, recovering from the extremely weird experience of being in concert with the other sorcerers. He had spent the last hour as part of a meld of sorcerers, and being just Rap again required some adjustment.

  “We were scouting.”

  “I thought that was too dangerous?”

  “We decided we had to risk it. It’s pretty safe if we all work together. So much power is just about impossible to detect.”

  Jalon pulled a face. “Sounds backward. So what’yu find?”

  “Dragons.”

  “Still?”

  “Still. Just about every dragon in the Reach, we think. He’s got them flying north. It’s an incredible display of power, because they keep trying to scatter. He’s holding them together, though. The Covin is. And we’ve found his target, we think.”

  “Well?”

  “Goblins.”

  “Goblins?” The minstrel scratched his flaxen mop. “I know I’m no scholar, but I am sure it’s a long way to goblin country! . . . isn’t it?”

  “The goblins are in Pithmot, at a place called Bandon The Impire’s got five legions lined up against them.” Rap yawned. He was intensely weary, and sick of the alien taint of dragon in his mind. Goblins almost on Home Water! Yet why should he be surprised by that? Years ago, the Gods had decreed that Death Bird would live to be the scourge of the Impire. They had not mentioned dragons, though.

  Jalon’s blue eyes were wide. “You’re quite sure Zinixo’s on the legions’ side?”

  “That we are about to find out,” Rap said grimly. “A few minutes more. We think he’s going to destroy the goblins in front of the legions to demonstrate his power and compel respect. That’s the best idea anyone’s been able to come up with.”

  The minstrel shuddered convulsively, as if seized by a sudden ague. ”That’s awful! Can’t you do anything?”

  “Now, don’t you start!” Rap had the ship under way again. He had spent half the night in argument with trolls who wanted to warn everyone in the dragons’ path and anthropophagi who wanted to turn the blaze aside. Just a gentle nudge would be enough, they said, because if the worms once scattered not even the Covin would ever regain control. Knowing that, they said, Zinixo would not dare resist a little sideways nudge.

  It had taken every trick and skill and argument Rap could muster to win his associates around to his own view—the sensible view, of course.

  “We’re going to do nothing!” he said. “We could make very little difference, and possibly make things a great deal worse. We might let the blaze scatter over half the Impire. We’d give ourselves
away to the usurper, and that would be the end of the game. So we sit on the sidelines and puke, that’s all we can do.”

  Jalon looked aghast at this cold-blooded decision. “You’ll let dragons attack people and not even try to rescue them?” “That’s what we decided.”

  But would it work? Would all those kindly trolls be able to restrain themselves when the burning started? Would the anthropophagi be able to resist the lure of battle—not to mention the occult view of people cooking? And could the Covin continue to control such an enormous blaze once it had tasted metal? There was potential here for one of the greatest disasters of all time.

  Rap would find out very shortly.

  He smiled at the minstrel’s woebegone expression. “Don’t sing too many laments for the goblins, buddy mine. They didn’t get to South Pithmot by hitching rides in haywains. Our old friend Death Bird has probably left a trail of bloody footprints all the way from Pondague. I’m sure there isn’t a soul in that mob of his that doesn’t deserve what’s coming!”

  Easy to say! Dragons were a bad way to die. The Gods had crafted Death Bird’s destiny for him and he could not have evaded it. His ultimate end must be ordained, too.

  Rap decided a few minutes alone with the wheel were just what he needed to soothe his tattered nerves. “Why don’t you go and find me some breakfast, of buddy?” he asked. “I’ll finish your watch for you.”

  Jalon nodded, blue eyes deadly serious. “I’ll check out the galley. Which would you prefer—spruce bough salad or housemaid’s knees?”

  Before Rap could answer, a voice roared in his head. SORCERERS, ATTEND! BEHOLD THE POWER OF THE ALMIGHTY!

  “Rap?” Jalon said. “Rap? Rap, what’s the matter?”

  5

  Dawn found Kadie already awake, gritty-eyed and sourmouthed, huddled in the corner of a stone wall that enclosed an orchard. She had slept very little, if at all. Goblin preparations for battle included more than the usual amounts of torture. Perhaps the screaming was partly intended to frighten the enemy, although the legions had been far out of earshot when darkness fell. More important, apparently, was the effect on the spectators, because the victims had not been impish prisoners but goblin volunteers, who had directed the honors being inflicted on themselves. Thus few of the goblins had slept, either, and now they were roused to manic bloodlust, twitching and jabbering with excitement. Many of them bore bloody relics hung on strings around their necks—fingers and even more gruesome tokens, freely donated by their original owners.