by J. L. Doty
But while the dream came together, the reality of his conscious world slipped relentlessly away from him. Between snatches of dream an undesired flood of power washed over him, a pool of magic that had entered the Mortal Plane unbidden, and that clung to him now with a rabid tenacity he could not defeat. It poured through him in waves. It turned his stomach when it crested, left him trembling with fatigue when it ebbed. At one point it reached such intensity that it attracted a cluster of small spirits from the netherworld. They hooted and shrieked about him for a while until he tired of their antics and swatted them out of the Mortal Plane with a flash of power that even Olivia would have envied. Such power frightened him, but before he had time to really consider its implications, he drifted again into his dream.
The first hint of dawn came as a faint lightening of the black night sky. Each time he returned from the world of his dream the sky seemed lighter, until finally it took on a deep blue hue and separated itself from the black earth by a thin, dark line. In his life Morgin had never seen such a featureless and straight horizon. The sight of it was an anchor that held him in the world he hoped was reality. He clung to that horizon desperately while the sun rose and the sky brightened further. Then, like a candle extinguished in the night, his power left him without warning and he was again free. He looked carefully at the land about him. He had always wanted to see the Plains of Quam, and now he wanted nothing more than to rip the memory from his mind.
Salula’s horse had wandered off in the night, though Salula still laid not far away, a gray-black crumpled heap among the brown brush and grass. Morgin stood, stretched painfully and yawned. He checked the makeshift bandages on his arm and thigh. He did a quick and sloppy job of rolling up his blanket, fastened it to Mortiss’ saddle, then turned to Salula. It was time to retrieve his sword.
He approached Salula slowly, fearful lest the halfman be not truly dead. But Salula lay on his back with his eyes open and unseeing, and in death he wore no less of an expression than he had in life. Morgin looked at him and winced at the lump that formed in the pit of his stomach.
Morgin’s sword was buried to the hilt in a spot just above Salula’s collarbone. Morgin bent over painfully, took careful hold of it and pulled. Nothing happened. He pulled harder, then harder still, until he began dragging Salula across the ground. In the end he was forced to sit down near Salula’s head, an agonizing exercise since his wounded leg had begun to stiffen. He planted a boot on each of Salula’s shoulders, gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands, and put his back into the job of pulling with all his strength.
The sword slid free with a sickening scrape. At the same instant a growl erupted from Salula’s throat; blood gurgled from his mouth and he sat up with his back to Morgin. He twitched and thrashed about and screamed his anger and hatred at the heavens.
Morgin instinctively brought his sword about in a long flat arc. It bit into Salula’s neck and lodged there momentarily. He pulled it free and hacked at the halfman again, had to chop at the Kull’s neck three times before the halfman’s head literally jumped from his shoulders, then hit the ground still screaming, bounced once, came to rest with its eyes on Morgin and its lips twitching a nether cry of hatred. The air filled with Salula’s taint.
Morgin scrambled to his feet, limped to the screaming head, hacked it in two with his sword. It still screamed at him, and it laughed Salula’s laugh. He chopped at it again and again, and each time his sword touched the head Salula’s voice dwindled, but it refused to die. He smashed the pieces with his boots, ground them into the dirt, and yet Salula’s laugh still drifted about on a nether wind. It was an ethereal cry of hatred, an oath of revenge, and it did not stop until Salula’s head was nothing more than ichor dripping from Morgin’s boots, though Salula’s evil still clung to the air.
Morgin wiped the gray-red stain from his sword and boots on some prairie grass, then slid his sword into its sheath, and it was only when the hilt slammed home that the last essence of Salula dissipated, as if somehow the sword itself drew his spirit into this world.
Mortiss stood nearby, nibbling on some small flowers as if what had just happened were no concern of hers. Morgin limped over to her, climbed painfully into the saddle, but before he rode on, he extinguished the shadows that enveloped him, for he feared what would become of him if he lived forever in shadow.
He turned back toward the forest and nudged Mortiss forward.
~~~
“I want him dead,” Illalla screamed.
“But what of Sssalula, my lord?” Bayellgae hissed.
“Salula is dead.”
Valso jumped to his feet. “No,” he shouted. “That can’t be. No Elhiyne pup has the power to kill Salula.”
Illalla took pleasure in his son’s discomfort. “This one does.”
Valso shook his head. “That’s just not possible.”
Illalla smiled. “But it is, for I felt Salula die myself. And that means the Elhiyne still lives.”
“Then he must die.”
Illalla nodded. “Yes. And soon. That is why I need someone who is reliable.”
“Sssalula wasss reliable, my lord.”
Illalla paced the length of the tent. “Salula was reliable only in his cruelty. I need an assassin who can think.” Illalla abruptly stopped his pacing and looked directly at Bayellgae. “That is why I have chosen to give the deed to you, my snake.”
“But I am no assssassssin, my lord.”
“You are whatever I command you to be, snake.” Illalla’s anger flared visibly and the serpent cringed. But when Illalla spoke his voice held no anger. “This Elhiyne is a powerful wizard. Think of the pleasure you will have when you feast upon his soul. Think of how his power will taste as you devour it. And think of the agony that will be your punishment if you refuse.”
“Yesss, massster,” the serpent hissed. Its tiny wings fluttered for balance as it wove from side to side on its pedestal. “There will be much pleasssure in thisss tasssk. And if he isss asss powerful asss you sssay, it will be a joyful death. And I have nothing to fear, for who can sssurvive the venom of Bayellgae?”
“Only I,” Illalla said.
“Yesss, my lord. Only you.”
“Go then, snake. Now. Seek out this Elhiyne lordling wherever he may be and kill him. After he is dead I gave his body and his power and his soul to you. You may do with them as you please.”
“Yesss, my lord. Thank you, my lord.”
~~~
Morgin rode west through the forest, though he was quite lost and had no specific destination in mind. He tried not to think of his dead comrades, but his mind kept tormenting him with images of their corpses rotting in the hot sun. He didn’t want to think of JohnEngine that way, or France, or Tulellcoe. He wanted just to ride, and not think at all.
The wounds on his arm and thigh proved to be the source of considerable pain, so his mind was far from thoughts of the trail when Mortiss chose to stop. The abrupt cessation of motion, and the impending danger that he sensed, brought him quickly out of his stupor. But he was groggy, and in pain, and unable to react quickly. Before he could do more than blink his eyes a giant of a man, far taller even than Ott the peasant, stepped calmly into the trail, knocked an arrow into the largest bow Morgin had ever seen, drew the string taught, and aimed the arrow’s barbed war point straight at Morgin’s heart. At such a short distance there was no question of accuracy, and for an instant Morgin thought he was about to die then and there. But the bowman didn’t release the arrow, and a soft female voice spoke from behind Morgin. “Off the horse, boy.”
Morgin hesitated, fearing for an instant that he had fallen among bandits, and since bandits in these hills did not like to leave witnesses to tell of their deeds, his best chance, no matter how slim, might be to run for it.
The giant bowman in front of him shook his head slowly. “Don’t try it, lad. Just do as she says.”
Morgin looked again at the man. He was a freak, enormously tall but thin and spindly,
with coal black hair and bone white skin. Not the pinkish skin common in some of the lighter skinned tribes, but the white of bones long bleached in the sun. The white face! The black hair! The incredible height! He was reminded of an expression he’d often heard: the white face of the black tribe. Morgin realized then that the man facing him was Benesh’ere, a tribesman of the seventh Ward. He should at least be neutral, and definitely not a bandit.
Morgin dismounted slowly, careful not to make any quick movements. He faced the bowman and held the empty palms of both hands outward. “I bear no weapon against you,” he said.
“Name yourself,” the bowman demanded.
“I am Morgin, once named AethonLaw et Elhiyne, but no longer.”
The bowman’s face broadened into a smile. He relaxed the bow string and lowered the arrow. “Well Morgin ye AethonLaw et Elhiyne,” he said. “We’ve been looking for you. Your—” Suddenly his eyes widened. “Blesset no.”
The soft voice behind Morgin hissed, “Lying filthy Decouix!” then struck him between the shoulder blades with something heavy. The air whooshed from his lungs and he went down on his hands and knees.
“He’s Elhiyne, girl,” the bowman shouted.
“Looks like a Decouix to me, Jack.”
“Blesset be still,” a third voice called out with authority.
“But how can he be this ShadowLord they speak of? He doesn’t look like a great warrior to me.”
“He’s clearly your senior,” the third voice said, “so show him the respect he deserves and be silent.” Blesset did not argue.
The bowman named Jack helped Morgin to his feet, where he leaned against Mortiss while he looked at the owner of the third voice. The man was even taller than the bowman and had the same white skin and black hair. He too carried an enormous bow and seemed to be the leader of this group.
“I’m Jerst,” the man said. He did not offer to shake Morgin’s hand as a clansman would. He indicated a tall spindly girl with the same white skin and black hair as the two men. “The one with the heavy hand here is my daughter Blesset.”
She was shorter than the men, but still taller than the tallest Elhiyne. She too carried a long bow, and like the men seemed thin and gaunt. She looked at Morgin as if he was a piece of maggoty meat, and she finished her examination with a smirk. “Forgive the blow, Elhiyne. I thought you were a Decouix. They too are rather short.”
“Blesset!” the bowman snapped. “Keep a civil tongue in your head. I’m Jack, lad,” he said to Morgin, “Jack the Lesser. Are you all right? Can you ride?”
“I’m fine,” Morgin said. “Just knocked the wind out of me.”
“Then mount up,” Jerst said tersely. “You’re coming with us.”
“Where are we going?” Morgin asked.
Jerst spoke just like Olivia when she thought questions were impertinent. “To our camp,” he said.
Morgin was in no way misled by the fact that they let him keep his sword. He’d heard of the fighting prowess of the Benesh’ere, and now was not the time to ask if he was their guest, or their prisoner.
A short time later they rode into a large and well-organized camp that had obviously been there for days. He saw heavily trampled trails, and fire pits that showed the signs of repeated use, and about fifty tents that looked to be light weight and easily transportable. They were wide enough to sleep two, and tall enough for an Elhiyne to stand in if he didn’t mind crouching a little, though the tall white Benesh’ere probably thought of them as cramped.
The camp was a beehive of noisy activity, with tall spindly Benesh’ere tribesmen moving in all directions. There were as many women as men, and like men they carried arms. Everyone seemed to have something urgent to do, and in the doing raised a small cloud of dust from the hot, dry ground.
Someone amidst the noise called Morgin’s name in a voice that sounded amazingly like JohnEngine’s. Morgin brought Mortiss to an abrupt halt.
“Morgin!”
There it was again. Morgin stood up in his stirrups and scanned the camp. It took only an instant to find JohnEngine among the Benesh’ere, running toward him and waving his arms. He seemed unhurt. Tulellcoe trotted beside him, also unhurt, while France hobbled behind them with a bandage on his right calf, and the Balenda walked behind him with one wrapped about her head. With them were six more Elhiyne, most showing some sign of hurt but all able to walk on their own. And they seemed so short among the tall Benesh’ere.
“I knew you weren’t dead,” JohnEngine said.
Morgin climbed stiffly out of Mortiss’ saddle. “What about the others?” he asked, noting that few of them were left. “Are they all dead?”
Tulellcoe shook his head. “Val has a broken shoulder and a bad slash across his ribs. And with him are four others who won’t do any fighting for a while. We’ll have to send them all to Inetka.”
Morgin counted the numbers and felt sick. “But we had more than thirty men before the skirmish in the ravine. Where are the rest?”
“Dead,” France said without emotion. “We’ve buried them.”
Morgin’s stomach tightened. For the first time that day his power came back to him. It seemed to be drawn by death.
Tulellcoe put a hand on his shoulder. “We were all ready to die, Morgin. All of us. That some of us live, we can only be thankful for.”
Packwill the Yestmarkian scout was there, and so too was the soldier Abileen. There were four men whose names eluded Morgin, but whose faces were well familiar.
They led Morgin to a small fire apart from the Benesh’ere camp. Tulellcoe removed the bandages from his arm and thigh, and Cort examined each wound carefully. “You’ve taken proper care of the leg wound, I see. All it needs is cleaning and a fresh bandage. But this arm wound. I sense magic there.”
Morgin nodded. “Salula.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And yet, the wound appears to be healing nicely regardless of the taint that I sense there.”
There was a question in her eyes that Morgin was not sure he could answer, and when he looked at Tulellcoe his eyes held the same question. At that moment Morgin’s power was upon him strongly, and it was all he could do to restrain it, but he casually extended his hand, remembering the way Malka had done it on the parapets, and he released just a hint of that power. A spark of magic kindled within his palm, and in broad daylight it grew until all of them shielded their eyes from it, all but Morgin. Then he willed it to be gone, and it was. The question was still in Tulellcoe’s eyes. Morgin said, “There are certain advantages to vast and limitless power, such as the healing of grave wounds.”
Abileen cleared his throat. “What of Salula?” he asked.
Morgin shrugged. “Dead.”
“You killed him?” Cort asked.
“Aye,” Morgin said. “Twice I killed him. Let us hope I don’t have to do it again, for I don’t think I can.”
They all gave him odd, sidewise looks.
Tulellcoe set to cleaning and wrapping his wounds. Morgin wanted to know about their hosts. “What of these Benesh’ere? I see both men and women. Is this a permanent camp?”
Val shook his head. “Far from it.”
Morgin looked at the twoname closely, wrapped in bandages from waist to neck, moving about with obvious discomfort, yet smiling as if he were loath to trouble those about him. Morgin asked, “Do you know about these Benesh’ere and their ways?”
Val shrugged, then winced, having forgotten the pain such a gesture would cost him. “A while back I lived with them on and off for some years. I know their ways, but I know little of the Benesh’ere themselves. This about you is an advanced scouting party, but they’re also prepared to act as a war party if need be. Remember the arrows that came to our aid in the ravine?”
Morgin nodded. It appeared that many of them owed the Benesh’ere their lives.
“You see women here because both sexes fight side by side as equals. They live their lives that way. They raise their children, they fight, they compete at games of wa
r and they train in the hunt, all without any distinction as to sex. Many of the women are better fighters than some of the men, and the women are always the more bloodthirsty of the two. You will be wise not to ignore the women if you discuss war with them.”
Morgin scanned the Benesh’ere camp. There appeared to be about a hundred of them, all with the same ghostly white skin. Most had the coal black hair that Morgin had seen on Jerst and Blesset and Jack, but it softened to a light gray in some who seemed older.
“If this is a scouting party,” Morgin asked, “where is the rest of the tribe?”
“Out on the plains,” Val said. “They’re just coming in off the Munjarro where they spend the winter months. They love it out there in that oven of sand, but this time of year the heat is too much even for them. It drives them into the mountains to the Lake of Sorrows where they spend the summer as they have always, in the shadow of Attunhigh.”
“How large is the tribe?”
“About four thousand men, women and children.”
“Is Jerst their leader?”
“No,” Val said. “Angerah rules the Black council. Jerst is his second, though foremost in war. But he leads this scouting party, and he holds considerable sway with Angerah.”
“Is Angerah here?”
“No. He would be with the main body of the tribe.”
“Tell me,” Morgin said carefully. “In their words I sense hate for the Decouixs. Did I sense rightly? And is this hate a tribal thing, or merely a few individuals who bear some grudge?”
Val hesitated before answering, then spoke warily. “The hate you sense is common to all Benesh’ere. But it’s not the Decouixs they hate, at least not directly. It’s Kulls, and all things Kullish. From earliest childhood they are taught to hate the halfmen. They dress their practice dummy in a Kullish cloak when they practice the arts of war. To kill a halfman and bring his cloak back to the tribe is a high honor, a badge of courage, the mark of a warrior. As for the Decouixs, they hate Decouixs only because they spawn Kulls and allow them to hunt the Benesh’ere for sport.”