by B. V. Larson
Then the smoke obscured the scene and he was out in the front room again, where the others had repelled a sneak-attack through the windows. Aunt Suzenna's prized shutters, which she had painted with rosettes and curling vines of her own design, now hung down, battered and scorched. Smoking black drops of what served the creatures for blood splattered the shutters and the sill.
“Brand!” cried Telyn, hugging him. She took up Jak's other arm. “Is he all right?”
Gudrin stepped forward and examined Jak briefly. “He's breathed too much smoke, but he should make it. If any of us do, that is.”
“They've taken the upstairs,” Brand told them when he could speak. All of them were crouched in the front room, where the smoke wasn't too overpowering yet.
“They're firing the house to drive us out into the dark,” said Gudrin.
Chapter Thirty
Berserker
“It is best that we try to break through immediately, rather than waiting until they expect us and we are entirely blinded by smoke.”
“The manling we met in the barn said there were three goblins with their broods here, plus Voynod himself,” said Brand. “Can we hope to win through such a force?”
Gudrin looked out the window for a long moment. Her face took on a cast of great age and weight. “There is a way,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.
“You should leave me behind,” Jak told Brand. “I'll only slow you all down. Don't die on my account, someone must tend the isle.”
“Forget it,” said Brand.
“You could put me in the cellar, where I might live through the fire,” suggested Jak. He grimaced with pain at every step. Brand didn't even bother to reply to his brother, thinking that the cellar would never survive the fire that was coming. He felt a pang of sadness for Aunt Suzenna, wondering where she was and hoping she was okay. If the rhinogs didn't kill her outright, he thought that the sight of her beautiful home burnt to the ground would.
At the front door barricade, they held a hurried council.
“Modi, you are of the warriors, what do you suggest?” asked Gudrin.
“We must break through them,” said Modi. For the first time since they had met him, the River Folk saw him in his true element. He talked more quickly and acted with greater decisiveness. There was a light in his eyes that had not been there before. Brand thought that he perhaps was only fully alive in the heat of battle. “They are attacking at the front of the house to lead us to attempt an escape at the back, where they doubtless lie in ambush. Therefore, we will exit here, at the front door. Straight into their ranks we will charge.
“But,” he said, turning to Gudrin. The two locked eyes. “We need help. I see no alternative but to wield the axe.”
Gudrin nodded in agreement. “I will wield it. You must be my second, Modi of the warriors.”
Modi's eyebrows shot up. “But I should wield the axe. You are not of the warriors.”
“It matters not, for I'm still of the Kindred.”
“But you have lived for so many seasons,” protested Modi, but he halted at a sign from Gudrin.
“I will hear no more of it. I bear the burden, so I will wield it,” she said. While they spoke, the room had filled with a pall of black smoke and heat from fires in the back of the house washed their faces. Moving with care, Gudrin held up her rucksack, and for the first time opened it. A golden light shone forth from the rucksack, lighting up Gudrin's face. Something seemed to shift, to move inside the golden light. Reflected specks of gold glinted in her eyes. The River Folk backed away in fright.
“What sorcery is this?” demanded Jak.
“High Magic!” cried Telyn, her eyes bright and her mouth curved in a broad smile.
Gudrin made no answer. She slipped her book into the rucksack and it vanished into the golden light. “For now,” she said solemnly, “I relinquish the wisdom of the Teret and take up the fury of Ambros the Golden. Throw back the barricades!”
Modi and the others hastened to obey her. Resetting the rucksack upon her back, Gudrin reached over her shoulder. Into her hand jumped the handle of a bone-white axe with twin, curved blades of great size. As she drew the weapon from its concealment a great change overcame her. Her aspect shifted from that of a talespinner to that of a warrior, lusting for battle. Her eyes shone with a light terrible to see, and her lips parted into a snarl of fury greater than any rhinog had ever produced. The bone-white axe she lifted high, and in its center was a great yellow Jewel. All there knew it to be the Golden Eye of Ambros, one of the Jewels of Power. A mixture of fear and wonder filled Brand to know he witnessed magic of legendary power.
With an inhuman bellow, Gudrin charged into the shocked faces of the enemy. Behind her came Modi, his battleaxe also lifted high. The others followed, feeling a rage overtake them as well.
Gudrin thrust up her bone-white axe so that the enemy might see the Eye of Ambros, shouting, “Know, foul ones, that you face the wrath of the Golden Dragon! The Lord of Wind and Sunlight is upon you!”
The rhinogs fell back. A band of three stood in the yard, but melted back into the trees at their approach. With a shocking burst of speed, Gudrin charged to where they had vanished. As she reached the treeline, not three but five rhinogs appeared from the brush and treetrunks. They glided forward, springing an ambush. Brand released a cry of anguish as Gudrin, who had somehow outrun even Modi, faced the ambush alone. Stealthy dark shapes came at her from all directions in hunched postures. Their weapons, eyes and gnashed teeth gleamed in the brilliant golden light of the Jewel in the axe. Brand ran faster, sure he was about to witness the talespinner's death.
The axe flashed twice. Each time the white axe rose and fell the Eye of Ambros flashed, illuminating the night for a moment like a stroke of lightning. Two smoking carcasses fell and the rest of the band broke. The Rhinogs ran toward their goblin sires, who now glimmered near the barn.
Gudrin made not for the road, but rather for the goblin sires that were gathering their broods to them for a hasty retreat. Modi and the River Folk could do nothing but follow her. The goblin sires gathered their rhinogs into three ragged lines and led them off into the trees. To Brand's surprise, Gudrin still gave chase, running as Brand had never seen one of the Kindred run before. She caught up with one of the spry goblins when it ran into a thicket and had to turn. Its offspring showed no loyalty and fled in all directions in a panic. The goblin flew at Gudrin, all fangs and long-fingered hands stretched out like claws, but she lopped off its head. Gudrin then ran after another goblin. Deeper in the trees she went.
“We must stop her!” cried Brand, running after Gudrin. “She can't get them all! They'll kill her!”
“The Berserkergang has her in its grip,” said Modi. “It is best that you let her give chase.”
Brand paid no heed, worried that the enemy would fall upon her alone in the forest and shoot her down or take her from behind. He had to run like the wind, but finally he caught up with Gudrin and laid a hand on her shoulder, spinning her around.
Gudrin wheeled with the axe upraised. Brand wondered to see that despite the slaying it had done, the axe had not a single stain upon it. The Golden Eye of Ambros flashed in the blade, lighting up the dark forest as though it were day. The golden flecks still lived in Gudrin's water-blue eyes and Brand thought to see a hint of madness there.
“We've won Gudrin! Control yourself, Talespinner!”
The axe blade flashed, and Brand thought he had forfeited his life, but it struck instead a great oak, biting deeply into the trunk. The entire being of the tree shivered, the finger-like winter branches rattling far above them.
Brand looked down to see Gudrin on her knees, her face in her hands. The axe was buried in the mighty oak's trunk so deeply that only the handle protruded. Amber light gleamed out of the crescent-shaped cut like the mouth of a jack-O'-lantern.
“How will we ever get the axe free?” asked Brand in wonderment.
Modi appeared at his side. “I will remove
it,” he said, taking a step toward the tree.
At this, Gudrin came alive again. “No, Modi! Don't touch the axe!”
Modi's hand stopped, but it didn't retreat. Brand watched Modi's face and his huge hand, frozen in the middle of reaching for the axe. He knew there was a great struggle there. Clearly, he wanted the axe for his own. In the end Modi retreated. Gudrin stood weakly and took her book from her rucksack.
“Lay your hands on the handle, Brand,” she said.
Brand stepped forward, blinking. How was he supposed to pull the blade out of a foot of hardwood? What would the axe do to him?
“No!” said Modi.
“Silence!” shouted Gudrin with what seemed to be the last of her strength. “You will obey me and you will honor the words of your father.”
Modi backed off and turned away. His shoulders hunched and his head hung low, he glowered at the ground fiercely. No one came near him.
“Brand?”
Brand stepped up. He glanced at Modi once, then at the others. Everyone watched him.
“Remove the axe and place it back in my pack.”
Brand nodded and laid his hand upon the handle.
Chapter Thirty-One
The Axe
Brand felt the power of it course through him. It was as if he held the reins of a massive horse that shivered at his touch. He was reminded of the presence he'd felt when he had confronted the Shining Lady and Oberon.
“Bruka!” Gudrin cried in the language of the Kindred.
In response, the axe worked itself out of the hard flesh of the tree. Brand tugged at it, but it was the axe that did the work. He felt as though he drove a powerful animal, merely guiding it.
It came free in his hand and he felt a greater surge of well-being… of power. The axe made him feel stronger. So strong, that its heavy curved blades were as light at a wand in his hand. Slowly, a wide grin opened his lips and spread over his face.
Gudrin opened her rucksack and offered it to Brand.
Brand froze, just as he had seen Modi do in reaction. He stared at the axe, and the amber jewel in the blade shimmered back at him, as if in acknowledgement, or perhaps as a form of greeting.
Gudrin shook her rucksack suggestively.
Brand knew what she wanted. But the thought was unthinkable. He couldn't put down the axe, he couldn't let go of this power. She was asking too much. She wanted a thief to give back the master's purse. She wanted a prisoner to slam the dungeon door closed. She wanted a starving beggar to give up a leg of roasted ham.
He thought of the Shining Lady and of Corbin's Dead brother Sam and of Telyn. Beautiful Telyn.
He stuffed the axe into the open maw of the rucksack. The beautiful Jewel vanished into darkness again.
Everyone relaxed.
“It is done,” said Gudrin.
She sagged down to one knee, and then collapsed.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Beginning
The battle was over, but they all knew that the war was just beginning. Suddenly tired and calm, Brand and the others picked themselves up and did what they could to staunch the flames. But Froghollow would be a ruin by morning, none of them doubted that.
In the flickering light of the burning house Brand had loved so much, Gudrin came to him and spoke with unusual gentleness. “You are a strong one. Strong of spirit as well as of limb. Few can willingly release Ambros once they have taken it up, and fewer still can do so without getting blood on its curved blades.”
Brand nodded. He knew it was true, he had held Ambros and knew the power of it.
“The enemy has been driven off for now. But life will not be easy for the River Folk from this day forward.”
“We will have to make weapons and prepare for war,” he said grimly.
“Perhaps,” said Gudrin. “What is certain is that your people and mine have a great problem, Brand,” said Gudrin. “I'm asking for your help in solving it.”
Brand looked at her seriously. Her face was old and craggy and worn. Females of the Kindred are rarely attractive, but Gudrin was perhaps even less so than the average. But still, he saw in her a certain beauty, a certain inner strength. She had done everything she could for him and his people by taking Myrrdin's place.
“I'm grateful for all you've done,” Brand said. “I'll help you in any way I can.”
She nodded. “I knew that you would.”
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