Beyond Sanctuary

by Janet Morris

  Then he left, running, headed toward the sounds of battle: now that they were found out, the odds were hard against his team and he thought to even them.

  Before him (as he dodged a whickering weapon, not looking up to see if spear or bolt or flying wing had sped by next to his cheek), for just a moment, two great red orbs like cat's eyes were visible and a bone-chilling snarl echoed inside his head, a snarl he remembered from his fight above the Sanctuary mageguild.

  when he realized he had stopped stock still, he exhaled the group he hadn't known he was holding, rubbed his horripilated arms, and ran ahead.

  What he saw when he reached the battleground was not a group of men who held two of his, or three, at bay, but three gray and stinking fiends, each with a soldier in its jaws or claws: one tearing out a living liver from a screaming man; one using a human head as a battering ram, running repeatedly against the high stone wall, the helpless soldier in his grip no longer conscious; one committing atrocities on a recumbent form, while over the proceedings a winged demon, copper-skinned and glowing in the night, hovered in mid air, urging the fiends to better sport.

  And into this he charged, sword sheathed, crossbow aimed high at the demon, inhuman commander of nearly mindless fiends. He put three bolts into it in quick succession; one through each wing, one through a hellish eye.

  And as he'd hoped, the demon fixed on him and, its flight erratic, its judgment of space and distance skewed because of the bolt which skewered its eye, gave a howl and came at him, flapping downward in drunken circles and calling out more of Tempus' names than any demon not sent to confront him could have known.

  He'd stopped the fiends, though, who hesitated, without supervision, crouching down where they were to gorge themselves on the dead they had in hand, paying no attention to his three remaining men who had a chance now to fight the humans running to engage them. Tempus had just time enough to use his speed to their advantage (loosing four quarrels which reduced the odds by dropping three human guards and one immense wolflike dog who came careening around the corner, others, smaller, in its wake) before the demon closed with him in grappling battle, descending on him hard and fast and penetrating his mundane armor with sulpherous claws.

  Its breath was stinking and corrosive; its undamaged eye was yellow, and as they fought and rolled there in the dirt it spoke to him of unearthly dooms and eternal service to a mage named Datan, and how long he would regret his impulse to save "useless, mortal fools" which had led him to sheath his able sword and use the crossbow when, if he'd any hope at all, the sword was it—residually "tainted" with supernal power.

  He got a knee upon one wing, though its jaws clamped on his shoulder, and tried to roll them over. He heard the wing snap and rend, the demon howl around the mouthful of his flesh it had. He felt its fangs grate against his collarbone and its spittle, as demon's spittle will, begin to do its work, making him weak and woozy, forgetful of the need to fight.

  As darkness closed in upon him, he made a gargantuan effort to draw his sword, got it partly out and then, only half pretending, went limp and lay quite still. He felt the demon shudder, he heard a voice from far above, calling the demon's name as hot drool fell upon his throat and its teeth clacked near to his jugular.

  The voice, a mage's, commanding the demon: "Cease!" was the only chance he might ever have. Tempus wondered, briefly, in a shattered second, whether his slowed regeneration could save him if the demon bit out his throat, and then what sort of afterlife he'd earned, and whether the mage he heard could keep him from it.

  Then, in one last effort, nauseous from loss of blood and dizzy and willing his eyes to focus, he lunged backward in the demon's grip and broke its hold.

  His sword came out of his scabbard, and his eyes came open, and though he could hardly see for the sweat in his eyes and the blood stinging his face and the narcotizing demon spittle coursing his blood, he struck out at it with his sharkskin-hilted blade and connected with its neck, a crosscut that cleaved down from right to left, through the collarbone and spinal column, so that as he thrust it off and scrambled back, to gain his knees, he saw the ground round about begin to steam and smoke, then bubble like hot-springs' mud as the demon's blood ran upon it and beyond, he saw two manlike feet take retreating steps.

  Pushing himself upright with his sword, he took three steps toward the human form swimming in his blurred vision, a huge and gross manform, hairless head and cloaked bulk all he could make out.

  Its hands raised. Its finger pointed. Ball lightning jumped from the extended digit to run up the Riddler's sword and shock him numb and senseless.

  He knew he was crumpling. He felt the dirt hit his knees and with an effort of will went down no further. He raised his head and blinked and tried to meet the eyes of the wizard, but the shape was fading away, going to mist, going to wisp, until only a voice was left: "You want your woman back, Riddler? Your superhuman female toy? Come to me and ask politely, if you live. And bring some souls to trade."

  Then there was nothing there, and something like rain began to fall.

  In a howling wind it came, blotting out the scant moonlight and dousing the oil fires on their plinths. It was a rain that stung and steamed and made the wounded cry and writhe where they lay in the dirt.

  And then beneath the manse and to its rear an explosion roared, flames spewing skyward: one soldier, one of the mercenaries, had gotten through and carried out the plan. And the conflagration did battle with the caustic tempest from the heavens. In its light, Tempus, his hands above his head and his head to the earth, noticed that the rain yet falling was blood red.

  It was some little time before he gathered enough strength to fight off the debilitating effects of the demon spittle in his system and the dizziness the loss of his own blood caused, and took stock of his wounds before trying with his one good arm, using his sword as a lever, to gain his feet.

  Having done so, he stood weaving among the corpses of men and dogs, garish and horrid in the fire's light, and took slow, painful steps toward them to see if any of his lived yet.

  Thus it was that, as his blood began to clot in the cauterizing heat from the fire and he wiped his brow with a sticky hand, he looked upward into the heavens (expecting to see dark clouds or eagles circling, more demons, the absent fiends—anything but what he saw) and met Jinan's father's blood-red eyes peering down at him.

  He raised his sword to his brow then, knowing that it was Stormbringer's intervention which had dissuaded the Osprey from finishing him, capturing him, or further cursing him on the spot.

  It was nice to know that Datan feared something.

  "Stormbringer," he called, shouting loud above the roaring blaze, weaving, hardly a heroic figure at that moment, his torn flesh showing the shoulder bones beneath and his stance chancy, "my thanks."

  By the time he'd finished speaking, the luminous eyes had faded from the sky and a soldier was trotting toward him, helmet held by its strap because of the ferocious heat, his weapons sheathed, stripping off his breastplate as he came.

  The mercenary took one squinting look at Tempus, slowed, came the rest of the way with naked incredulity on his face as he surveyed the carnage and his task force leader.

  "Need some help, there, commander?" He stopped, a few lengths away, his gaze fastened on wounds that should have been incapacitating, if not fatal. Some men don't know they're dead for an hour or so, commit feats of valor beyond reason in the field, then die when the fervor fades away. His expression said he thought Tempus in such a state, dead but just not aware of it, about to keel over in his tracks.

  The Riddler indicated the men lying on the field, five of this one's comrades, a welter of guards and dogs. "See if any need help to live or die," he grated, and limped slowly and painfully over to the stable wall to watch the fire bum and the one remaining soldier he commanded do as he was bid.

  After a time the mercenary came to him: one would live, one craved a quick death, the others had secured one. Arid: "Fiend
s! Where are the accursed fiends? Or am I mad, or spellbound? There were fiends… weren't there? And a winged thing? Copper colored? And some damn huge dog?"

  "There were. As for where they are, be grateful they aren't here. Find some horses." From the stable, nervous pounding and a few whinnies of fear could be heard as the horses sensed and smelled the fire. "Make a litter for the wounded man and let's go home."

  "Yes, m'lord!" The soldier's gratitude was heartfelt. He met Tempus' eyes, tearing his gaze from the left arm dangling uselessly, chewed and broken. He opened his mouth as if to say something more, closed it, shook his head, and trotted away, calling back: "I'll just see if our own horses aren't still around here, somewhere…"

  By the time he had a chance to question the young mercenary at length, Tempus was terribly cold, but he was able to determine that the Nisibisi agents they'd come here seeking had either slipped away or been incinerated. Whichever, he thought he could use this place to billet his cohort when it arrived, and gave orders to that effect.

  Then he collapsed in the soldier's arms.

  * * *

  The moon was in its dark phase when Niko reined in his bay before a roadside inn called the Shepherd's Crook. Its torchlit sign proclaimed in incised gilded letters that it offered the "Last Bed And Board Before Tyse" and this was so: Tyse's suburbs were no more than two hours ride to the north east. Even from this vantage, as he dismounted and tied his among a dozen other horses, he could see Wizardwall's wards flickering, blue and intermittent, against the cleaner dark of the star-dusted night.

  He hesitated before the inn's oak and fieldstone threshold, stroking his pregnant mare's muzzle, fiddling with the feedbag he slipped on it: he was feeding her oats and corn, twice what he gave the bay, but she was losing weight daily. He felt the now-familiar twinge of guilt. Whatever had possessed him to ride her out of Sanctuary?

  He went around her, his hand sliding along her trail-sharpened croup, extracted his moneybelt from where he habitually secreted it between the bay's saddle and the sheepskin he used for a saddleblanket, trying not to think about Wizard-wall glimmering against the sky or any of the old and painful memories these roads south of Tyse evoked. He was confronting as many ghosts here as he'd become used to meeting in his rest-place. But unlike Tamzen and her friends or his deceased left-side leader, these shades weren't friendly.

  He'd smeared the cuirass Aškelon had given him with ashes and grease from his cookfires; now he struggled into it, fastened its buckles, took his helmet from the rosette on his saddle and, propping it under his arm, climbed the steps and pushed open the door.

  The Shepherd's Crook had changed since last he'd corne this way: whitewashed walls had been paneled over with weathered planks; weapons long past service hung over the fieldstone hearth which dominated the wall opposite the bar. There were tables now, a score or more, and chairs instead of benches. The floor's sawdust was clean and he didn't recognize anyone—not the three serving wenches or the athletic, hatchet-faced man with shoulder-length black hair who presided behind the bar.

  Niko let out a sigh of relief and approached the barkeep. Perhaps no one would recognize him, either. The face he'd seen in a pool of water yesterday bore only a passing resemblance to his old one: his broken nose and the bumps on his forehead and his left cheek were still puffy. Maybe it would be all right.

  He scanned the crowd as he made his way among the tables: a threesome of Rankan garrison soldiers, noncommissioned officers by their devices; six in the unadorned leathers of hill-born fighters sporting the braided sidelocks of Free Nisibis, backs to the wall and watching him closely; three tables hosting two guild mercenaries each, talking softly, their eclectic armor and weapons gleaming with polish and oil in the flames from tapers in sconces above on the walls; two men in civilian garb: one with the short suede cloak and linen, ankle-length breeches of Tysian style and one whose tunic was a dusty moire silk— a merchant of some kind, plumed hat and all.

  He positioned himself at the bar so he could study the mercenaries' faces, ordered Tysian white wine, neat, paid with a Rankan Imperial, and got more change than he'd expected, commented, learned from the bartender that the exchange rate these last weeks favored Ranke, and listened, as he sipped, to the talk along the bar, where three young brash farm boys and two inveterated drinkers with wine-dark noses leaned precariously.

  He'd almost decided not to eat here, not to pursue the matter which had prompted him to stop in, when a girl came from the kitchen bearing a tray on which bowls of meat-and-dumpling stew steamed provocatively. "Any more of that?" he asked the barman, and the big man in homespuns cocked his head and squinted before he answered, "Yes, if m'guest will have a seat. And wouldya be wanting bread with it, or rice or winter wheat?"

  "Wheat." Guest in Tyse was a title which conferred privilege: a guest, here, was protected like a family member. Even an enemy, if he was accepted as a guest, was succorded.

  When he'd taken an empty table in a corner by a half-open window paned with skin, and one of the girls came to bring his order, he asked her if the owner was about. She pointed to the bartender and replied in Rankene thick with Tysian accent that "you're lookin' at 'im, sirrah."

  The contemptuous form of address made him meet her eyes, and these were gray and hollow-deep, familiar tunnels, not the hopeless, tired eyes of a serving wench likely to be one of the comforts the house extended to its boarders. She thumped the bowl down before him and as she picked up her tray he grabbed her wrist. "Do I know you?"

  She looked down at his hand, tugged against his grip: "You'll not have the chance if you don't let me loose, sirrah. That's my husband there." She tossed her black-haired head, let the tray clatter to his table, crooked her finger at the bartender. The man, throwing down his rag, came out from behind the bar.

  Niko released her and rubbed his eyes. "I'm—sorry, mistress. You reminded me of someone…" She'd reminded him of the witch, of Roxane. He couldn't say that, and her husband was hulking now, both fists on Niko's table. "Trouble? Wife? Guest?"

  The woman was retreating, leaving Niko to answer to it, not saying a word, just her laughter sounding, transiently, in the suddenly quiet room—a light, trilling, tinkle, not the bray of an alehouse workwife. And he couldn't recall her face, just her eyes…

  "Well, guest?" The man leaned close. "I came here—The man who owned this place before you was my mother's brother. I've been abroad for years, thought I'd stop in to visit. I don't have much family… not in the north, not in Ranke. Would you know where they've gone, him and his family?"

  "To the gods, Nisibisi style. Bought the place at auction nine months back. What's this got to do with her?" His sharp chin jutted in the direction the woman had gone, through the swinging doors behind the bar.

  "Nothing… I thought she might be a cousin of mine, is all."

  The man straightened up and the smell of garlic faded: "Sorry, not a chance of that. But since you expected a free meal and won't get one, take a flagon of wine on the house, guest."

  Still guest. It was odd, but he accepted. He hadn't been close to his mother's brother—it had been his father's twin, a krrf dealer in Caronne, who'd bought him free and sent him to Bandara when Niko had been taken as a serf by a Rankan officer after the sack that had made him an orphan. No other members of his immediate family had been as lucky. This uncle had spared his loved ones by going to his knees to kiss Rankan boots.

  Rankans, Nisibisi, Mygdonians or the sea-raiding Beysibs—there was no choice among them: all sides are evil if you're not on them.

  He ate, paid, and got out of there, the food making him tired, and the wine making him depressed. As he was tightening the bay's girth and preparing to mount, the sound of sandals slapping stone made him turn, hand on hilt. The group of six mercenaries was descending the stairs. He heard the name 'Tempus" and the word "hostel", and then they saw him watching them. Their conversation ceased.

  Silently, the men who had been talking in the multilingual patois of guild
mercenaries approached their horses; as they did so, he found himself surrounded: two mounted men behind him, one on either side of his own two horses, and two who came up to the rail and leaned on it.

  One said, "Life to you, brother," in Machadi, cautiously but firmly. They weren't curious on a whim, Niko realized. They were going to roust him, ask for his papers (he carried none) or of his business here, or—"These horses have been a long way, fighter. Where from? Where to?"

  He didn't want trouble. He thought of the crossbow in the bay's saddlebag, wrapped in hide, too well hidden and protected to be accessible quickly enough to help him. But he didn't want to announce himself. Not yet. He'd heard the Riddler's name from one of these; he wished he'd heard the context.

  "From the south. To the hostel. Looking for hire," he responded in the same tongue.

  "Plenty of your sort, boy," the second said. "Your face says you haven't been faring too well in your warring. No room for youngsters in this battle. Go home and practice another few years. It's seniors only at the guild hostel, if that's where you're headed. And seniority's something you're not likely to have." Niko shrugged, "It's a big war," and swung up on his bay, the mare's tether in hand. He wrapped it twice around his saddlehorn, simultaneously telling the bay: "Back, back," in Rankene.

  But the second—a portly, grizzled veteran—grabbed the bay's bridle, and the two mounted men behind closed in, blocking his retreat. The two others, one on his left and the sixth on the mare's far side, crowded him. One of these said, "Let's take him home and see what headquarters makes of him. He'll work for some damn faction or other, if he's not already, once he finds out what we've said is true."

  Niko let his reins drop, spread his empty hands where all could see. "Life to all, so the saying goes. Let's observe it— and guild courtesy, if there's any of that this far north. Or ride with me to the hostel, if you're not afraid to show your faces there… As for mine, it got this way winning, not losing."