Stalking Darkness n-2

by Lynn Flewelling

  Their bare feet made no sound as they stole along the rocky shore to the edge of the forest just north of the camp. The open ground between the stunted trees was treacherously laced with exposed roots jutting out of the thin soil. Alec clutched Thero by the arm, pulling him along as he stumbled.

  They soon spotted several men on picket duty ahead of them. The guards were watching for trouble coming from outside the camp, however, and Alec skirted around their position with no trouble. Gauging their direction by the moon, he led the way north.

  They'd been going for less than half an hour when Thero suddenly pulled Alec to a halt in a small gully.

  "Look, I'm tired, too, but we can't afford to rest," Alec urged.

  "It's not that," Thero whispered. "They know we're gone. I just felt something, a searching, I think. It won't take Irtuk Beshar any time to find us."

  "Oh, gods!" Alec gasped, looking back the way they'd come. "We can't get taken, Thero. They'll sacrifice you and now that I've been bloodied there's nothing to stop Mardus from—"

  "Shut up," Thero interrupted, giving him an abrupt shake. "Kneel down."

  "You've got your magic back!" Alec breathed, relief washing over him. "Can you translocate us now?"

  "No, I don't have the power." Thero's lean, bearded face was lost in shadow as he laid cold hands on Alec's shoulders. "Clear your mind and relax. This spell will only last until sunrise; remember that if you can. Sunrise. You'll have to run hard, go as far as you can before—"

  They both froze as a weird, preternatural howl burst out from the direction of the camp. It rose to a mad, sobbing cackle, fell away, only to erupt again, closer this time.

  "Too late!" hissed Alec, then winced as Thero grabbed him by both arms and forced him back to his knees.

  "No it's not!" Thero held him down, speaking urgently. "Clear your mind, Alec, relax. This takes only a moment."

  Another gibbering howl floated to them through the night.

  Alec bowed his head, wondering what it was that There intended, and why it suddenly seemed so familiar.

  "That's good, very good," whispered There. "Alec i Amasa Kerry, untir maligista."

  It was the unaccustomed sound of his full name that triggered Alec's memory. He opened his mouth to protest, but the magic had already taken hold.

  "Untir maligista kewat, Alec i Amasa Kerry." There continued, pouring out all his remaining power as he pressed down hard on Alec's shoulders. Whatever horror Irtuk Beshar had unleashed was crashing through the trees toward them, bellowing its lunatic hunting call.

  Throwing back his head, Thero cried out, "Let thy inner symbol be revealed!"

  The change was nearly instantaneous. One moment Alec was kneeling before him, the next a young stag was shaking the remains of the tattered tunic from its antlers. Nostrils flaring, it leapt away from Thero, then looked back in confusion. A ghostly residue of magic still glimmered faintly around it, but that would soon fade.

  Thero took a tentative step toward it, though he knew Alec was probably past understanding human speech.

  "I didn't intentionally betray the Oreska," he told him. "Let this be the atonement for my blindness. Go on. Run!"

  The stag lowered its head, lashing its antlers from side to side as if refusing to leave him.

  "No, Alec, go."

  A greedy snarl from the shadows settled the issue; the stag turned and bolted.

  The last thing Thero saw was the white flash of its tail.

  46

  They'd had time now to learn the pattern of the Plenimaran camp. Pickets were stationed along the landward perimeter a quarter mile out, with a second line closer in. It made a tight net but, like any net, it was also a pattern of holes.

  Silent and deadly as true urgazhi, Beka and her raiders quietly killed four pickets, stripped them of their tunics and weapons, then worked their way toward the mass of sleeping prisoners.

  The clearness of the night was against them. The moon was nearing full and by its light they could make out the details of each other's faces as they gathered for the raid. By that same betraying light, they also saw that Gilly and Mirn had again managed to keep themselves as close as possible to the outside edge of the group.

  Stripped to the waist, they lay on their backs, heads resting on the plank.

  Just then, angry shouts burst out somewhere on the far side of the camp. Whatever was going on, it was attracting the attention of the whole camp. Several of the sentries stationed among the prisoners moved off in the direction of the noise. From somewhere nearby came the snort and bellow of a bull.

  "By Sakor, we'll never have a better chance than this!" Beka whispered.

  Her plan was simple, direct, and fraught with the possibility for complete disaster. The others understood this, but had been unanimously in favor of the rescue.

  Bows at the ready, Beka and the others watched from the cover of the trees while Steb, Rhylin,

  Nikides, and Kallas pulled on the stolen enemy tunics and strode casually out in the direction of the prisoners.

  Still focused on the outcry, none of the sentries challenged the four raiders as they quickly lifted the planked prisoners and rushed them into the shelter of the trees. The whole act was accomplished in a moment's time.

  The raiding party ghosted back the way they'd come until they reached Jareel and Ariani, who'd been left behind to guard the horses well outside the Plenimaran perimeter.

  "Knew you'd come," Gilly said faintly as Kallas and Nikides lowered him gently to the ground on his back beside Mini.

  Their hands were swollen and purple where the long spikes pierced their palms. Their shoulders had rubbed raw against the rough planks. Looking more closely at them now, Beka saw from the numerous other bruises and abrasions that covered both men that they must have often stumbled and fallen beneath their awkward burdens.

  "Rest easy, riders," she said, kneeling next to them. At her nod, several of the others held their legs and shoulders. Nikides bent to cut the ropes lashing their arms to the wood, but Sergeant Braknil stopped him.

  "Best leave those on 'til we're done," he cautioned. "Give them both a belt to bite down on and let's get this over with."

  Using a pair of farrier's pliers, he set his foot against the plank and wrenched the first spike from

  Gilly's hand.

  It was an excruciating process. The flesh had swollen and festered badly around the spikes and

  Braknil had to dig into the skin to get a proper grip.

  Gilly fainted as the first spike pulled free.

  Mirn gnawed doggedly at the belt between his teeth while tears of pain streamed down into his ears.

  "Easy now," Beka murmured, trying not to let the rage and revulsion she felt show in her voice as she pressed her hands down on his shoulders. "It'll be over soon."

  When it was over, Braknil bathed their wounds with seawater and bandaged them with strips of sweat-stained linen and wool each rider had cut from their clothing.

  "Neither of them is in any condition to ride," said Beka. "Rhylin, you and Kallas are the strongest riders so you'll take them. Nikides, see that those planks come with us, and the spikes. Don't leave the bastards any more sign than we can help."

  As the rest of the turma mounted for the retreat, a new cry came from the direction of the camp, one that brought gooseflesh up on every arm.

  The mad, unnatural howl rose and fell, then burst out again, quavering as if some monstrous throat was about to burst with the effort. The horses tossed their heads, nervously scenting the wind.

  "Bilairy's Balls! What was that, Lieutenant?" gasped Tealah.

  "Let's hope we don't find out," Beka muttered. The awful cry came again. "No, it's headed away from us. Let's move on before it changes its mind."

  "Which way?" Rhylin asked, shifting his hold around Mirn, who'd finally fainted.

  "Inland, out of their path," Beka replied as another faint howl floated back to them through the trees.

  "And away from whatever that
is!" someone muttered as they spurred away.

  Alec?

  Nysander's brow creased as he stared unseeingly into the darkness. It had been Thero's essence he felt first; now there was only Alec's, glimmering in his mind like a distant beacon.

  It took no expenditure of power to sense it—the energy was clear, perhaps due to the strong magic fused with it. Nysander recognized the familiar imprint of the spell.

  Well done, Thero!

  But why had the young wizard's own essence disappeared so suddenly?

  Feeling Alec's fleeting tremor again, he focused the slightest burst of magic on it, silently mouthing, Come to us, Alec. We need you.

  They'd taken shelter beneath an old salt pine in the forest above the temple site. The tips of the tree's lower limbs swept nearly to the ground, forming a low, tentlike space inside.

  Stretched out on the thick fragrant bed of fallen needles, Micum snored softly. Beside him, Seregil tossed restlessly, muttering in Aurenfaie.

  The wizard had felt little need for sleep since his arrival in Plenimar. The quiet hours of the night were too precious to waste. Instead, he kept watch and wove his meditations, nurturing his returning strength. He only hoped it would be enough when the time came.

  Seregil shifted again, uttering a low moan.

  Nysander considered waking him, sharing this first sign of hope, but it was too soon; if Seregil believed Alec, was nearby, then he would strike off on his own after him. Alec was still too far away.

  Leaning back against the pine's knobby trunk, he resumed his lonely vigil.

  The Four was whole again; they would find each other.

  Beka's raiders pushed due east until the moon set. At dawn they found themselves on a rocky highland overlooking the misty blue sea in the distance.

  Mim's and Gilly's hands looked like bloated gloves, mottled with angry shades of purple, red, and yellow. When Braknil had finished with the new dressings, Beka drew him a little apart from the others.

  "You've seen this before. What do you think?" she asked, keeping her voice low.

  "I'd give a year's bounty for a drysian." The sergeant was careful to keep his back to the others.

  "Even then I don't know if the hands could be saved. As it is here, field dressing's the best I can do and I've got no simples to work with but brine. That might be enough to draw the pus off, but if they take the blood poisoning—" He gave a small, expressive shrug. "Well, it'd be kinder to speed them on."

  Looking back to the others, Beka watched Tare coaxing the wounded men to drink.

  "Thirty-four of us rode out of Rhiminee together, a green lieutenant and green troops, except for you," Beka said grimly. "Now look at us."

  "It was that attack on the regiment that cleaned us out,"

  Braknil reminded her. "You led us well there. What happened wasn't your fault. Every one of us that fell went down with honor. We've fared damn well with all the raiding we've done since and that is your doing. All that counts now is getting back to our own lines with what we've learned."

  Beka gave her sergeant a weary half smile. "So you keep telling me. Let's see if Mirn and Gilly have anything to add."

  "Some of the other prisoners spoke some Skalan," Mim told them weakly, his head resting on Steb's leg. "One of them said the general's name is Mardus, a lord of some degree. He's got necromancers with him, too."

  "Necromancers," snorted Gilly, staring down at his useless hands. "One of them looked more demon than wizard. Black as something raked out of the fire, but alive as you or me! No one knew where we were headed, but everyone knew what was going on at night and it was her doing it!"

  "It was some kind of sacrifice," explained Mirn. "The guards came every night at sundown and you could see everyone trying to shrink down out of sight any way they could, hoping they wouldn't be the ones chosen. We were on the other side of camp from the ceremony most nights, but we could hear well enough to know that they were cutting up the poor buggers alive—"

  He broke off, shuddering. "Afterward the other wizard, the man, would conjure up a black fetch to take away the bodies. The next day we'd march right over the spot where it happened and I swear to you, there wouldn't be so much as a drop of blood anywhere."

  "A black fetch?" several riders murmured uneasily.

  "By the Flame! You suppose that's what we heard howling in the woods last night?" Tare asked.

  "Go on," Beka urged, ignoring the others.

  "What I'll never figure is why they didn't do us," Gilly groaned, his voice suddenly unsteady. "By the Flame, Lieutenant, we were enemy captives. They planked us, all right, but nothing more. All the rest of the lot were plain folk: sailors taken by press gangs, Skalans, Mycenians. Women and children, too. But most of them were Plenimarans. Their own people!"

  Both men fell silent, then Mirn sighed. "Sorry, Lieutenant, that's about all there is to tell."

  Beka shook her head. "Don't apologize. You rest easy now." Getting to her feet, she looked around at the others.

  "I figure we can't be more than four or five days ride from Mycena. If we're lucky, our side's made some headway south by now. Ariani, I'm sending you back to the regiment with a verbal dispatch. Take the two best horses, ride as hard as you can, and get word back to Commander Klia about what we've seen."

  Ariani snapped a proud salute. "I will, Lieutenant."

  "Corporal Nikides, you're in charge of taking back the wounded. We'll rig up drag litters for Mirn and Gilly here. Steb, you'll go with them. The rest of us will dog the column for a few more days."

  Steb looked down at Mirn, clearly torn in his loyalties. "With all due respect, Lieutenant, that only leaves twelve of you. I can shoot and fight as well with one eye as ever I did with two."

  "That's why I need you to protect the wounded," she told him, and saw his look of relief. "That goes for you, too, Nikides," she added, seeing that the corporal was about to object. "Head north as fast as you can. You're my secondary couriers in case Ariani doesn't make it. The rest of us are staying to spy, not fight."

  Leaving Braknil in charge, Beka made a wide circuit of the camp, coming to a halt at last on a west-facing outcrop downhill from the others. She could hear them grumbling among themselves.

  Those being sent away were none too happy about leaving the others behind; those staying wondered what more there was to be learned.

  Beka sighed heavily. She'd already wrestled with the decision to further fragment what was left of the turma. None of her superiors would fault her for turning back now.

  But what would they say about her reasons for staying? As her eye wandered north up the coastline she again felt the strange impression of familiarity and lightness that had come over her the night they'd first seen the comet.

  Whoever this Lord Mardus was, whatever he was up to with his necromancers and pointless marches to nowhere, newly honed instincts told Beka that she was too close to learning his secrets to leave off now.

  47

  Cries rang out behind him as Alec fled the little clearing. The voices of the Man and the Other mingled for a moment, then were silent. An inchoate sense of confusion stirred again, but his animal consciousness drove him on, deeper into the forest and away from the carrion reek. He scented other Men in the forest around him but they were easy enough to evade.

  The first time Nysander had cast the spell of intrinsic nature on him, all those months ago in the safety of the Oreska garden, Alec's conscious identity had been so totally overwhelmed by that of his beast form that Nysander had hastily changed him back before he could harm himself or anyone else in the resulting confusion.

  It was the same this time, and it had been his overpowering animal flight instinct that had undoubtedly saved his life.

  The wind was alive with scent as he dashed headlong through the darkness. Heeding the warnings that came to his nose, he avoided the Plenimaran pickets, bounding through thickets and over gullies and deadfalls with unthinking ease. As he fled, his mind slowly recovered from the shock
of the change, blending with that of the stag into a state of heightened awareness that was neither animal nor human.

  Emerging from the trees onto a rocky sea cliff, he stopped for a moment, muzzle dark with foam. Below him the tide crashed against the rocks, sending up great fans of spray.

  The comet was burning across the sky and sight of it sent a fresh wave of panic through him. Every muscle trembled and twitched, every instinct screamed flight.

  But he remained still, long sensitive ears sharply forward, nostrils wide. As his strange blood slowly cooled, something new caught at his senses.

  Pawing the rock with one cloven hoof, he uttered a plaintive bellow, then stood motionless, listening.

  The answering call was nothing more than the faintest of whispers in the silence of his mind. There was no voice or scent or image, only the summoning of instinct.

  North, still north. Follow and trust.

  Like a bird that suddenly recalls the route south after the first frost, Alec gave himself up to the pull of that faint glimmer, his mind still too clouded by the stag's to question or doubt.

  With another deep-throated cry he set his face to the wind and bounded onward.

  Moon shadow patterns slid across his broad back as he ran and his human mind gradually began to marvel at the sensation of this startling new body.

  He could feel the strain and bunch of the stag's muscles as he sprang, the pumping of its great heart, the weight of the heavy rack that it bore with no more thought than he'd ever given to a hat.

  The familiar scents of sea and forest took on a new richness beyond human perception. Pausing to drink at a flowing spring, he couldn't resist the aroma of young mallow shoots growing around it. The wet green taste of them filled his mouth like honeycomb. A little grey owl winged across his path with a soft rush of feathers as he set off again.

  The coastline grew more desolate as he moved north, and in the distance he could see a solitary peak jutting up against the stars. The ledges were broader here, extending out into the sea and cleft with crevasses and bands of darker stone. Farther up, where rock met grassland, mats of crowberry and lichen sent up a sweet aroma as he trampled across.