by Ed Greenwood
She came up out of the face-slapping water with a gasp, past the hull, the rope she was supposed to be towing the raft across to Nirmathas with now hopelessly tangled around her neck and shoulder and breasts. Gods damn all conniving Telcanors! Why-
Suddenly the leaping flames above her and the starry night sky above them were full of hummings, menacing racing hums, west to east, that tore through flames and charred wood and Molthuni horses and Molthuni throats.
A volley of Nirmathi arrows from the far bank! A hail of racing arrows that just kept coming, hissing and humming through the night like so many angry wasps-arrows that brought crashes and screams and hoarse cries from the Molthuni patrol. Tantaerra saw moonlight to her left, and risked thrusting her head up through that hole into the smoke and sparks and still-hungry flames, to look toward Molthune.
Riderless horses bucked and galloped, tossing their snorting heads in fear. Though the arrows had now stopped, they'd struck home; there wasn't a mounted warrior to be seen anywhere on the riverbank road. The entire Molthuni patrol was unhorsed!
Suddenly, a hand grabbed her from below.
Tantaerra let out a scream of her own that became a gargling, glubbing choking as she went under. An instant later, that same hand rammed her up against the burning boards above her, banging her head and shoulders but slamming a lot of that water back out of her. Helplessly she coughed and wept and spat, writhing in pain as the racing river slapped her across the face again, and then …
She was blinking into a face she knew. Or rather, a mask she knew.
"How-?" she managed to choke out.
"Abandoned my raft," he panted, holding her out of the water so she could drool out the last of what had been flooding her and gasp in air again. "Let's pick the right time …to leave yours."
Tantaerra nodded, or tried to.
She was still trying when The Masked looked into the bright wash of moonlight ahead, pointed at a bend where the Inkwater turned east to carve into Molthune, and gasped, "Now!"
And before she could even protest, he'd hauled at her, easily breaking her numbed grip on wet lashings. Her tow-rope sawed and burned under one breast, tumbling her-
And was abruptly gone, and the raft with it.
Moonlight bathed her as she bobbed, a strong arm hooked under hers. It caught the flash of The Masked's knife as he put it away. Then he was swimming strongly, heading for Nirmathas as the river bend brought it up in front of them like a wall. Dying flames were swept away off to Tantaerra's right as The Masked fought the flow, spume bubbling around them and racing on.
It seemed so close, but root after leaning tree after rock-studded overhang swept past and was left behind as the river clawed them on.
The Masked was swimming more feebly now, stroking in fits and starts and being swept along between them. Would he …
Slimy rocks bruised their knees and hands and they were tumbling again, evil smells rising around them as they rolled in river mud, slammed into the upthrust roots of a tree that had drowned long ago, and …
The Masked was dragging her, no longer swimming but crawling, splashing up onto a slope of mud that was studded with sharp stones and crisscrossed with weed-shrouded roots-and suddenly alive with men and women in leather, swords in their hands and angry glares on their faces as they burst from the dark trees above the riverbank, a dozen or more.
"Die, Molthuni!" one hissed, as they clambered down to meet The Masked.
Tantaerra looked up at the dripping and exhausted man she'd hired and come so far with, as he hurriedly let go of her and snatched at his daggers.
He could run, she thought. Without her short legs slowing him down, he might make it to the trees. Yet he placed himself between her and danger, time and again.
She reached up and touched his side. He looked down at her, eyes curious behind the dark mask.
Then he turned back to meet the oncoming Nirmathi.
Chapter Ten
Welcome to Nirmathas
" Now!" a voice snapped, from across the river behind her.
Tantaerra whirled around in time to see Molthuni soldier after Molthuni soldier stand up amid the tall grass on the far riverbank, aim and fire a crossbow, then duck down again to bob up once more, mere moments later, with a second cocked and loaded crossbow, and fire again. Flame flared among them, and became a high-arcing bolt trailing blazing strips of cloth, that fell into the river and went out with a sigh. A second fire-quarrel followed, and a third, the last one landing high in the leaves of a Nirmathi riverbank tree, that promptly blazed up with a sudden crackle.
In its light, The Masked and Tantaerra could clearly see that of the score or more Nirmathi who'd emerged to capture two wet invaders, only three were unscathed, with five groaning wounded-and all the rest now fallen, sprawled still with bolts protruding from them, and dark trails of blood sinking into the mud.
"Thank you!" called the voice that had snapped the order to fire, and this time Tantaerra knew it. The deep-voiced Telcanor officer who'd fed them back in the hollow. He and his men must have been moving downriver under cover all this time, just waiting for Nirmathi to show themselves.
Then branches snapped and underbrush crackled, and the three surviving Nirmathi who'd been crouching and drawing back from the exposed riverbank were joined by a dozen more.
Three had bows, and died under a hissing hail of fire from the Molthuni force. The others surged down the bank at The Masked.
From the Molthune side of the river arose a great whirring of windlasses as crossbows were hastily cranked, but with seven or more swords against The Masked's sword and dagger, wielded by a man lower than his assailants and mired in the soft and sucking river mud, the Molthuni would have to reload very quickly, or their next volley would come too late …
Tantaerra hurried to a stone she could see protruding from the mud, hoping it was large and settled enough to be stable under her as she threw daggers. Not that she had enough of them to bite all the Nirmathi now warily advancing on The Masked, even if every hurled blade counted.
The Masked didn't wait to be hewn down. He backed into the water toward Tantaerra, snapping, "To me!" over his shoulder at her.
The one Nirmathi who decided to rush him discovered the hard way just how soft and deeply sucking the mud where The Masked had been standing was. He struggled to stay upright, plunging to his knees in the wet holes the masked man's boots had left behind. It was a fight he lost.
The Masked pounced ruthlessly, slashing the back of the man's neck and then springing onto his falling body with both knees, driving the Nirmathi's face deep into the slurry of water and mud and water trying to be mud.
The man writhed briefly, then lay still-and The Masked stood on him, going into a warrior's crouch, sword and dagger ready.
The Nirmathi drew back, looking to the trees behind. They were still contemplating returning to cover when a tall, broad-shouldered man strode out of those trees, hefting a battleaxe. Grinning savagely, he stalked down the muddy bank right at The Masked. The other Nirmathi parted to let him through, and he loomed up over the intruder from across the river, let out a triumphant yell, and raised his axe high for a vicious chop.
He was still bellowing bloodthirstily when a crossbow bolt took him under the chin with a thud that rocked him, set him to gargling, and made the axe fly from his hands. It struck the Nirmathi beside him senseless and toppling into the moonlit river with a mighty splash.
Into the heart of this man, The Masked sheathed both blades, then leaned over in the mud with arm outstretched and plucked Tantaerra off her feet. Hauling her against his chest, he snarled, "Play dead!"
His other hand grabbed a good fistful of the gurgling, dying axe-man's tunic-front and pulled the Nirmathi down on top of them both as he flung himself over backward into the Inkwater.
Tantaerra's gasp was almost a shriek, but the icy chill robbed her of breath. Amid all the humming crossbow bolts, thrumming arrows, and eagerly murderous Nirmathi, it suddenly struck
her just how shockingly, breath-robbingly cold it was.
They went deep, bubbles thundering and coiling around her, unseen slimy rocks bruising and bumping, then slowly rose back up toward the moon …probably a long way downstream of where all those Nirmathi now lay dead. The Masked was hauling her face free of the river, but he wasn't thrashing about or swimming, just drifting as the racing river swept them along.
He was playing dead, just as he'd commanded her to. Well, this was one order she'd obey. Tantaerra blinked water from her eyes and let herself go still, staring up at the stars.
And promptly saw arrows speeding past over her, from Nirmathas.
Then came a hail of Molthuni crossbow bolts racing past in the other direction. Grunts and choking cries arose, then splashes, as dying and dead men toppled into the Inkwater to join her. Nirmathi casualties, all, but then she was too far from the Molthuni bank to see or hear any dead soldiers of Molthune falling in.
She started to shiver, and knew The Masked could feel it. His arm was under and around her, and he gave her shoulder a squeeze of reassurance. She felt his body twist in a slow, careful kick that sent the dead Nirmathi toward Nirmathas …but not away from them, which meant the masked man must have his foot hooked around the corpse.
Would they get tangled, and dragged down? Did he need one of her knives? No, this must be deliberate, must be …she felt the corpse strike something that bumped and slowed it, then hit something else, then snag.
Of course. The Masked was using the dead man like an anchor or grapple, to snag on rocks and roots and suchlike along the Nirmathi bank. While trying to look to any watching Nirmathi eyes as if they were all dead bodies being swept downstream by the river.
Suddenly the moonlight was blotted out, and the corpse, which had been rolled free of the snag by the relentless Inkwater, caught on something else.
In a trice The Masked was kicking and clawing in the river, dislodged stones rolling under them as he snatched and thrashed and finally caught hold of something, rolling them both clear of the rushing waters, into a tangle of exposed roots and heaped stones. A leaning overhang of trees that were well on the way to toppling into the river hid them from the moon-and hopefully from any watching Nirmathi.
The axe-man's body was thankfully gone, swept farther down the river. Tantaerra discovered the bundle lashed to her leg was gone too, lost somewhere in all the tumbling and tumult-and she knew from seeing The Masked facing those Nirmathi on the muddy bank earlier that he'd lost his. Which meant they were without food, wineskins, blankets, and any clothes beyond what was plastered to them now, sodden and cold.
"C-c-cold," Tantaerra hissed at him, through blue and trembling lips, just in case he was thinking of hiding here.
"We'll warm up by getting as far from here as we can before dawn," he muttered back. "Come on!"
He clambered up over the edge of the overhang, drawn sword menacing boughs, thick leaves, and Nirmathi foes who weren't there. Tantaerra swarmed up some of those branches after him, and he set off along one edge of the bushes in a cautious crawl, heading inland.
Only to freeze, as someone groaned very close by. A wet drizzling sound followed, then a man said roughly, "Ohhhh, that's better. What was in that fireguzzle, anyway? Teach me to trust Zostur!"
"Wasn't Zostur's cheap wine," another man replied sourly, from farther off. "'Twas the stew."
"The stew? I hardly had any!"
"Doesn't take much, Keln. I watered half riverside Nirmathas the last time I tried Braeron's stew. Learn this well, lad: you have to pay attention to who's doing the cooking, and eat accordingly. That's just wise strategy, that is!"
"Hunh," Keln commented, stumbling away from where The Masked and Tantaerra lay motionless. "Wouldn't it be tactics, now? Or not …I never could keep those two straight."
"Don't bother. For us, it's simple enough: Molthuni invade, and we kill them. If we don't, we lose our country. They have all the coin-thus all the soldiers-and so we keep hidden and strike when we can get away again alive."
"Except here at the river."
"Except here. We can't let 'em cross the Inkwater too easily, or they'll arrive in force without us knowing about it. There're Molthuni armies marauding around due west of here right now, you know."
"What? Why?"
"Because they want to, that's why."
"No, I mean: why do we let them maraud?"
"Because if we stand forth in bold battle lines to stop them, they'll carve us to frymeat, that's why! Now climb back up into the watch-tree, master strategist, and stop prating. You'll have all the invading Molthuni around here awake and listening."
"Hunh!" Keln said scornfully. "There aren't any invaders this side of the riverbank, or anywhere near here. We'd hear them."
"Not over your chatter, we wouldn't. Climb."
Smiling silently in the dark, Tantaerra followed The Masked, who'd started crawling purposefully west along the edge of the bushes as Keln noisily and grumblingly strode right past them and started to climb the watch-tree, still complaining about stew.
The Masked set a brisk pace. The last they heard from Keln, as his voice faded into the distance behind them, was undoubtedly a sarcastic comment on his arrival at his post high in the tree-yet it still made Tantaerra freeze, for a startled moment.
"Welcome to Nirmathas."
∗ ∗ ∗
Before dawn, The Masked managed to club a sleepy Nirmathi camp cook from behind, leaving the man draped dazedly over his pots never knowing who'd hit him. The masked man then stole two half-cooked rabbits and a fistful of pickles.
He'd handed half to Tantaerra as they'd slipped out of the camp-all the other Nirmathi were out somewhere in the night, hunting Molthuni-and they'd eaten as they crept on into the fading night. Looking now not for any road to Hurlandrun, but rather for a good hiding place where they could sleep through the day. Preferably near one of the many small, noisy creeks that seemed to tumble everywhere in this forested, trail-crisscrossed country. The din of racing waters might mask their snoring.
Across the river behind them, westernmost Molthune was all rolling grasslands, home to scattered ranches and farms, but this part of Nirmathas was a tangled, overgrown warzone of burned and abandoned villages and farms fast being reclaimed by the forest.
Tantaerra had no idea how far from the Inkwater they'd come-it was hard to travel for more than a few strides in a straight path, for one thing-but they were certainly deep in a war-torn countryside of unburied corpses, tangled scrub forest, and scavenging beasts, where Molthuni troops encamped amid much torchlight and Nirmathi warbands crept through the trees in the concealing darkness.
She doubted matters changed much for the Nirmathi by day. The trees were their cloaks and allies. More than once, she and The Masked had come across great charred scars through the forest, the open aftermaths of recent fires where a Molthuni commander had tried to burn out lurking foes.
The dozen or so wagon-roads they'd crossed weren't much different. They were all thrice as wide as most roads Tantaerra had seen, or wider, where bordering trees had been hewn down or burned away by the invaders from Molthune, to rob attacking Nirmathi of cover. It hadn't taken long to learn these roads were the deadliest part of their night journey. Molthuni patrols with no lanterns but ready crossbows lurked-and so did Nirmathi in the nearby forest, with their own bows. If they crawled with slow, agonizing care and Desna's blessing was with them, they might make it across one without attracting anyone's attention, but even their fastest, boldest dashes were chased by bolts or arrows-or hails of both.
Which meant, as the night sky grew lighter and lighter behind them, their progress had become a wearying sequence of hiding, rushing for short swift periods, then hiding again to pant and cower as warriors of either Nirmathas or Molthune stalked suspiciously about.
By then The Masked was wearing an arrow sunk deep in his right shoulder, while Tantaerra was bleeding freely from two deep furrows across her back where crossbow bolts had
just missed taking her life.
"If we get through this, why don't we just keep going, and leave Nirmathas and Molthune behind?" Tantaerra gasped. They sagged against the same tree and peered grimly out through thick foliage at the sound of a stream flowing somewhere in front of and a long way below them, at the bottom of a narrow, breakneck-deep little gorge in the forest. "That Telcanor had to be lying about the spells!"
"He was," The Masked muttered, ducking back into the dark tangle of leafy branches and drawing her close, "but there's a little matter of a mountain range ahead of us-not to mention what lies the other side of it. The corpseland of Nidal. And then there's me."
"What about Varisia? We could head north along the mountains until-"
"They were high and cold enough we'd be climbing to our doom to try to cross them?"
Tantaerra gave the dark, half-seen face looming above hers her best glare. "You could at least try to be helpful, Tarram Armistrade. And just what do you mean, 'then there's me'? What is it you're not telling me? You've been keeping secrets from me, I know you have, and-"
The sword that burst through the twigs and leaves then to pass right between their noses was daubed with something to kill its shine, but they both saw it well enough.
With a shout of pain The Masked twisted and lunged, driving his own blade back along the intruder's into something solid. He was rewarded with a sob-and the dulled blade sagging as a convulsing hand let it fall.
The unseen Nirmathi's body crashed down through bushes growing in the gorge, landing with a thud and a splash.
"Jeressan?" a voice hissed from nearby. "Jeressan?"
The Masked listened intently, and when the faintest of cracklings marked a movement on the other side of the tree they'd been leaning against, he thrust past it, hard.