by Ed Greenwood
"You do," Tarram agreed. "You have orders from me. I distinctly heard myself give them, mere moments ago, and I know you all heard me. So let's have no delay or disobedience. Just lead the way."
"And if we don't?" the most distant spearman asked challengingly.
Tarram used the Fearsome Gauntlet's force punch on him, slamming it into his throat and leaving the man on his knees, clutching at his nigh-crushed throat and strangling for air.
"Don't make me use the full wrath Molthune has vested in me on you," he told the suffering heap almost sadly. "I have to report personally to one of the General Lords when I do that, and I hate having to make those reports. Enough that I'm always tempted to leave no survivors. So there'll be no witnesses."
"I increasingly admire you men of Molthune," Tantaerra piped up, looking at her partner. "So decisive. So direct. My country will be pleased to learn this of you. I am eager to present myself in Canorate."
"Molthune will be pleased to welcome you there," Tarram told her solemnly. "Now, if you faithful warriors will just lead the way?"
One spearman reached a decision. Bowing his head, he pointed the way through the trees with his spear and said, "Follow me."
Tarram stepped forward as confidently as if he were a king and the Molthuni all around him fawning, toadying subjects. Taking care not to roll her eyes, Tantaerra followed.
They didn't need to confer with each other to know they were being taken to the local Molthuni commander, not to the river. The soldiers fell in all around them.
Tarram caught sight of a crossbow slung across one man's shoulders. "How long ago was the order given to use bows only for battle?"
"I haven't marked the days," that soldier replied grudgingly. "Sir."
"One would think," Tantaerra remarked brightly, "that bowmen could more easily fill cooking pots. All these trees must hamper even the best spear cast."
None of the Molthuni replied until Tarram gave the nearest one a stern glare.
Whereupon that spearman said sullenly, "That's so. Yet our orders are that crossbows are to be used in desperate moments of battle, only."
They crested a heavily wooded ridge, and two strides down its far side were challenged by the half-hidden soldiers of another watch post.
"Guests to see Commander Elthen," one of the spearmen said tersely.
"Guests," not "prisoners." Good.
Their escort grew by a few warriors, and trudged on along a game track, across a boggy valley and up over another ridge beyond. There they were challenged again, and passed on down a slope choked with ancient, leaning trees, out into a clearing where the midday sun shone down brightly on some rather battered-looking tents, a cooking pit covered by a row of tripods holding up simmer-cauldrons, and a lot of stern and watchful Molthuni soldiers in better armor than the leathers of the spearmen.
A grim-looking officer with long grizzled sideburns and weary eyes, when informed that these two strangers were to see the commander, ordered Tarram and his halfling partner to divest themselves of all weapons.
"I am a Lord Investigator of Molthune," Tarram informed the man calmly. "I give orders, not take them. Until Nirmathas falls to us, this is enemy soil where we are at war, and my weapons ride where they are. My companion is an envoy from another country, and is to be treated as such. You would not order one of the General Lords nor the Imperial Governor to surrender his weapons, and you will not order her to do so."
The officer drew himself up. "Prisoner, you are in no position to be making claims or giving orders-"
Tarram stepped around him. "You are relieved of your rank and command."
Striding on, he addressed the next nearest Molthuni warrior in the camp. "Which tent is Elthen's? Our mission must not be delayed."
"I-"
The man was still hesitating when a tent flap nearby was thrust aside and a scar-faced man strode out and up to Tarram.
"Elthen," he identified himself flatly. "And you are…?"
"In some haste," Tarram replied. "I am a Lord Investigator of Molthune, escorting an outland envoy to Canorate. We require safe transport across the Inkwater, as swiftly as it can be provided."
The commander regarded Tarram in stone-faced silence for a moment or two, and then asked calmly, "Would that be the Fearsome Gauntlet you're wearing?"
Tarram smiled tightly. "Krzonstal Telcanor talks too much. As usual."
A trace of a smile rose very briefly onto Elthen's face. "So this envoy is not the only valuable you're escorting to Molthune."
Tarram nodded.
Commander Elthen turned to catch the eye of a man across the camp, waved him over, and upon his arrival announced, "This is Hardreth, my best scout. He and nine soldiers will conduct you both to Arlarn Straeble."
Tarram raised both eyebrows in a silent question, and the commander added, "The General Lords sent Straeble to the Inkshore camp to observe and report back on our war effort in Nirmathas. As I am under orders to inform him of anything unusual that comes to my attention, to him you must go. Gauntlet and all."
"Sir," Hardreth said briskly, bowing his head. "Shall I-"
He broke off as a dweomercat almost bowled him over. A furry flood of them burst into the camp, rushing to surround Tarram and swarm up his body to the gauntlet he was hastily holding high.
Molthuni everywhere started to curse, draw swords or daggers, or thrust at the rushing, snarling cats with spears.
Tarram spun around, already knowing what he'd see.
At the edge of the camp, buried in eagerly leaping, clawing dweomercats, was a lurching, lumbering mound topped by tentacles. As it advanced, those tentacles were rather wearily plucking cats from its body and hurling them away through the forest, to thud against trees, or dashing them to the ground. Wherever they clung most thickly, two tentacles swung a wicked blade-a curved sword that whispered ceaseless promises and taunts-in carefully aimed slices that swept squalling, slashed-open dweomercats to the ground.
More dweomercats were rushing at Tarram, leaping eagerly to try to touch or cling to his mask, which was starting to glow brightly again.
Hardreth and Elthen were both snarling curses and slashing the rushing beasts as quickly as they could, their attention increasingly on the approaching tentacled monster.
"What is that thing?" Hardreth snapped. "Never seen anything like it!"
By way of answer, Tantaerra caught Tarram's eye and dodged behind the scout's knees. Tarram managed not to smile as he thrust a knife into a dweomercat in midair and swung hard, accidentally putting his elbow into Hardreth's chest and shoulder.
The scout went over backward with a startled yell, Tantaerra slipping out from behind him like a racing wind. She was in time to duck between Elthen's legs as the Molthuni commander turned to see what had happened to Hardreth, and she did that trailing a dying dweomercat by the tail.
Elthen stepped on the moving beast, stumbled, and crashed down atop half a dozen very alive dweomercats, who spat, clawed, and bit at him.
By which time Tarram and Tantaerra had left him far behind, sprinting across the camp in the direction of distant Molthune. The clearing around them was now a battling chaos of shouting, hacking men and racing, snapping dweomercats, but a clear trail led out of it in the direction the two partners wanted to go.
Out through a thin stand of trees into open, lower ground, it seemed. Which meant less cover, but…tentacled monster or no pursuing tentacled monster, it was the way they had to go.
Tarram risked a look back, at the frantic fray. The tentacled thing was gaining on them.
He put his head down and really ran-only to dodge behind a tent as more armored Molthuni soldiers, swords in hand, came running up the trail into the clearing to meet them, drawn by the rising din. Tantaerra scampered after him.
Luraumadar, Luraumadar, Luraumadar, the mask chanted insistently.
The soldiers racing into the camp swore in astonishment as they saw what was shedding dweomercats and rising up like a wall of tentacl
es to meet them.
Leaving so soon? the Whispering Blade hissed in Tarram's mind. Why, the bloodletting's just begun!
Tentacles lashed out.
∗ ∗ ∗
It was Tantaerra's turn to wear the gauntlet. She was still settling it on her hand as she and The Masked crested another hill on the rutted wagon-road and-
Found themselves facing a ready line of three Molthuni, with spears.
"Stop right there!" one barked.
"Lord Investigator of Molthune, coming through!" Tantaerra announced, running full-tilt at him.
At the last moment before slamming into them, as two of the soldiers crouched together to block her and the third swept his spear up to gut The Masked, she tossed the Fearsome Gauntlet behind her, high into the air.
In the distance, the half-mental, half-audible murmurings of the Whispering Blade rose into an excited shout as the sight at the hurtling glove.
Tantaerra crashed hard into an ankle, but took the butt-end of a spear in the ribs and lost all her wind and her footing in the same painful instant.
Smashed off her feet and falling helplessly aside, she saw her partner calmly catch the Fearsome Gauntlet, slide it on, and do something that smashed the Molthuni backward as if an invisible giant's fist had crashed into them.
The grunts and shouts and wet thuddings behind them were getting closer.
The Masked rushed over to Tantaerra, swept her up, and rushed on through the rows of tents, using the gauntlet twice to punch aside any Molthuni who barred their way.
"Put me down!" Tantaerra gasped, when she had her breath back. Gods, her ribs hurt!
Her partner obliged, and she risked another look back. Many Molthuni were pursuing them now, and others were fleeing the tentacled monster. It no longer had all that many soldiers of Molthune daring to fight it, and the dweomercats were noticeably fewer, too. So just how far were they from Molthune?
Not that a little thing like a river would stop that tentacled thing …
She and Tarram ran on, past the last few tents and up the far slope of the valley, into the inevitable trees beyond. A cart track climbed the slope beside them, and there'd be a Molthuni watch post somewhere here, ahead, and-
She was on the verge of gasping a reminder to The Masked about that when they came out onto the track, as it curved across in front of them-and reached the first soldiers' bodies, sprawled in huddled heaps in the road.
"Tarram," she panted, "we might be running right into Nirmathi arrows!"
As if her words had been a cue, shafts started to zip and hurumm out of the trees right in front of her, hissing past to thud into their Molthuni pursuers.
She swerved uncertainly. Just one arrow could end her life nastily, and-
"Keep running!" a voice called from the trees. "Have they any other captives in camp?"
"No," The Masked bellowed back, "but they've used fell magic and unleashed a tentacled monster! Fill it full of arrows!"
No one shouted a reply, but more arrows flew.
The cart track curved on into the forest before them, and Tantaerra and The Masked sprinted along it.
They ran and ran until strength and wind both deserted them, then staggered to a stumbling halt to lean on trees, gasp for breath, and continue at a slow, panting walk.
"We dare not stop moving," Tantaerra gasped, "or that thing will catch us."
Her partner nodded grimly. "We have to assume it will slay everyone who dares to challenge it, and keep after us." He peered up at what little sky they could see through the leaves overhead. "It'll be dark sooner than we'll want."
Tantaerra nodded, and looked back along the track. Almost mockingly, several dweomercats padded into view, following them with golden eyes gleaming. "So, do we stay on this road and make haste, knowing we could run into Nirmathi or Molthuni-or just their arrows-at any time? Or head into the trees and risk getting lost, making more noise, and going slower?"
"Mahalagris doesn't care how much noise we make or how slowly we're going," The Masked reminded her.
"Now that's a bright thought, O font of good cheer," Tantaerra told him, as they pressed on. "How damned far is this river, anyway?"
Chapter Eighteen
Telcanor Forever
Tantaerra wrinkled her nose. The sweet stink of death hung strong in the air, stronger ahead of them. Decaying humans, most likely.
A strong-phew, very strong-reminder that sooner or later, Desna would stop smiling on them.
Life had taught her that much, if not all that much of something else: good sense.
Otherwise she'd be far from here, getting her hide away from Molthune and Nirmathas both, into somewhere safe and quiet. Cheerful Nidal, perhaps. Or Razmiran, where the Living God ate babes for breakfast.
Yet a friendlier deity-the Song of the Spheres, unseen on her butterfly wings-had certainly been by their side this day.
They'd heard a Molthuni patrol coming and managed to get into the trees in time to hide. The Molthuni had thought the noise they'd made had come from the dweomercats that the soldiers promptly slew. Later, they'd fallen afoul of Nirmathi archers who seemingly couldn't hit a wagon up close, and had wasted half a dozen shafts on tree trunks not all that close to either Tantaerra or her partner, never daring to rush out into open confrontation.
So they'd simply walked away, she and Tarram, and here they were, still plodding along-staggering with exhaustion would be a fairer calling of it-at twilight, within hearing of the Inkwater at last.
Which meant there must be Nirmathi all around them. So when would the next attack come?
For the last long while, as the sun sank lower and lower, they'd been working their way along game trails. This latest one had led them to this reek. So now they were both down on their bellies crawling, and peering cautiously ahead into the gathering darkness.
Into a stinking hollow full of ripe, rotting battle corpses. It lay across their path, close enough to the river that they could clearly hear the waters flowing endlessly past, somewhere in the lowering darkness beyond the thick trees on the far side of the hollow.
A perfect spot for an ambush.
Tarram looked at The Masked. He was lying on his face, forehead pressed to the ground, eyes closed. He'd taken off the mask long ago to hide it and its glow under his clothing, and she could barely tell if he was still alive through the ragged cloth undermask he was wearing now.
"Tarram?" she murmured, edging closer to him.
Her partner rolled slowly over onto his side, letting out a faint groan. "Worn out," he muttered. "Just let me rest."
Well, thanks a lot, Holy Desna. And me with but one hand.
Tantaerra was struggling to roll her partner the rest of the way onto his back when a Molthuni voice out of the nearby gloom froze her in mid-heave.
"That you, Farthras?"
"Aye," another voice replied, from a little farther off in the other direction, along the hollow. That reply was followed by the thud of heavy boots trudging nearer. Hastily Tantaerra sank down atop The Masked and played at being a corpse.
Farthras strode right past her in his eagerness to share the latest news. "New orders! The cursed Nirmathi got most of Uldran's men back at Arthjet, so we're to join the camps at Downtree. They're mustering a really big army at last, to teach the Nirmathi a lesson! We march at first light, and they're saying the moment we reach the camps, they'll march on with us. Our feet are going to be sore tomorrow!"
"My feet are sore now," the other Molthuni growled. "Trust Uldran to be the sort of fool to fall afoul of a few half-naked Nirmathi running barefoot from behind one tree to the next. I suppose he thought they'd obligingly step out into some open field and form lines to face him! Stonehead!"
Farthras chuckled. "Your judgment of Uldran draws no argument from me, but there's more! They're saying the gods are taking a hand in this endless war, now!"
"Uh-huh. Who's the 'they' this time? Someone's always prattling about the gods doing this and that!"
&n
bsp; "This is different. Ever heard of dweomercats?"
"No …hoy, now, wait. Blue magical cats, in some of the old tales, yes? Never seen one, though. What about them?"
"They're streaming this way out of the heart of Nirmathas, that's what. Sent or driven by the gods, everyone's saying-not just us, but the Nirmathi, too."
"Oh? And how can we be so sure of that?"
"We took some captives today, and didn't leave them in much state to think up clever lies. They think it's the gods, too."
"Has anyone checked to see if there aren't Nirmathi warriors clinging to some dweomercat bellies, or if there's a wizard somewhere behind all this? I grant that spellcasters are blamed more than seen-but even a wizard is a sight more likely to be mixed up in a run of beasts than a god!"
"That I don't know." There was a crackling of crushed twigs as Farthras joined his unseen fellow Molthuni, and his voice sank to a more conspiratorial mutter. "But word is, we're mustering to take care of the Nirmathi, but are under strict orders to leave the dweomercats alone. Just in case."
"Fine. The fewer beasts I'm supposed to fight, the longer I'll stay alive. So if we're marching at first light, I'm for bed right now. Gods-cursed stupid war."
Tantaerra listened intently as the two Molthuni moved off. When she was sure they were gone, she shook The Masked, hard.
His groan this time was more of an irritated grunt than a sound of pain, so she hissed at him, "Come on. We need to get just a little way on, before morning. Across the river."
"Across the river to where?" he growled. "The midst of some army camp full of soldiers eager to stick spears into us?"
"We'll find a place that isn't an army camp-even if we have to drift downriver all night."
"Upriver would be a better bet."
"If I could drift upriver, I would," Tantaerra told him patiently, "but rivers don't work that way."
"I'm worn down, right down to my bones," The Masked said wearily. "Can't you scout the far bank before we get cold and wet and swept downstream? I-"
Tantaerra thrust the stump of her handless arm into his face. "Tarram Armistrade, you still have two hands! I don't give that tentacle-beast's hind haunch if you're tired, you'll get up right now, like the curse-ridden, pigheaded man you are, and swim the river with me!"