Angus Wells - The God Wars 03

by Wild Magic (v1. 1)

  Not waiting for an answer, he swung astride the black horse. Katya followed him into the saddle. Calandryll shrugged and mounted, reaching down to help Cennaire clamber up behind him. For all he was damp, and not a little miserable, it was a pleasant sensation to feel her arms encircle his waist, her body pressed against his back. He thought to voice some gallantry, but all he found was, "We'll build a fire soon enough, and then be dry."

  "Thank the gods," came her response: that she was wet afforded her no physical discomfort, but her vanity was offended. And she thought it wiser to pretend a degree of suitable dejection, so she contented herself with holding him, pressing hard against his back. As he turned his mount after Katya's grey, he could not see her smile.

  Like the southern bank, this side of the Kess Imbrun was a labyrinth of tumbled rock and the sun was almost set before they came to a place where the boulders formed a circle that afforded shelter from the strengthening wind. Bushes grew there, sufficient that they could build a fire, and forage for the horses. They cut branches enough to construct a hearty blaze and Bracht and Calandryll delicately withdrew, rubbing down the animals while the two women shed their wet clothing in privacy.

  The evening grew chill as the sun set, darkness layering the chasm, the rumbling of the torrent below them a murmur dulled by distance and the intervening canyons, the lake invisible behind the sheltering stones as they set food to cooking, aware that their supplies dwindled and they must soon hunt, or ride hungry.

  " We've enough for two days more/' Bracht declared, fetching out falchion and dirk to wipe the blades, "do we eat sparingly."

  Calandryll drew a rag over his own weapons, applied a whetstone to the edges, testing his work with a thumb. "The Jesserytes surely eat," he remarked. "There must be game we can hunt down on the Plain."

  "Which must delay us." Katya glanced upward, at the looming darkness of the cliffs. "Rhythamun has surely reached the rim by now."

  "And likely taken his place among the Jesserytes," said Bracht somberly, "save they recognize him as gharan-evur."

  "Your folk did not." Calandryll slid his sword home in its scabbard. "Dera, but this pursuit is like the finding of a single straw in a haystack. Even though we've one who knows his face."

  He looked to Cennaire as he spoke, and she smiled gravely. "I shall not forget that face," she murmured, shuddering at the memory. "Do I but see him, I shall know him."

  "That," Bracht said with a sardonic grin, "is the easy part. Bringing you to him, the hard."

  "Still, we've found his trail thus far." Katya stretched bare arms toward the fire, her tone thoughtful. "And that has been no easy thing. Does Horul aid us as have Burash and Dera, then we've another godly ally in our quest."

  Bracht shrugged diffidently, making no comment. Calandryll said, "Perhaps the Younger Gods design it so," not sure whether he spoke from conviction or the need for optimism. Certainly it seemed a monumental labor to hunt down a single man in the unknown country of the Jesseryn Plain. "I pray it be so," he added.

  "And I." Bracht chuckled, his lean face hawkish in the fire's glow, "For the gods know, we need all the aid we can muster."

  Cennaire glanced surreptitiously from one face to another, marveling at the determination of these three. She was not much given to admiration—her experiences in the bordels of Kharasul, as a courtesan in Nhur-jabal, had taught her more of misprize- ment than respect—but now, she admitted with surprise, she could not help but feel a grudging admiration for the singularity of their purpose, for their courage. Did she, she wondered, develop some notion of morality in their company? A conscience, even? Could that be so, given her revenancy?

  Her contemplative mood went unnoticed, or they assumed she was wearied by the journey, and soon it was agreed they sleep, Calandryll taking the first watch.

  He had little thought of danger: it seemed, as Bracht had said, that Rhythamun was confident enough he left no traps behind him, nor did it seem likely they should encounter hostile Jesserytes in this place.

  How wrong he was, he discovered when something whistled out of the darkness, wrapping around him so that his arms were pinned, his legs entangled, and all he could do was cry out once as he toppled sideways, crashing hard against a stunted pine before he thudded down.

  2

  CALANDRYLL heard Bracht shout, and in the same instant saw figures dart from the shadows, running past him, one halting to kneel beside him, settling a cold hand about his throat, the other displaying a knife, the steel gleaming briefly in the moonlight. He thought to die then, but the blade was tapped warningly against his cheek as the hand tightened on his windpipe, threatening to choke him, and the wielder made a guttural hushing sound, cautioning him to silence.

  He could offer no resistance. Whatever had felled him now bound him firm, and the strangling hand denied him the air with which to vent a cry. Such would, he realized despairingly, have been useless anyway: he heard the sounds of brief protest, but no hint of battle, and knew that his comrades were taken as swiftly as he had fallen. Uselessly, he cursed himself for failing in his watchman's duty.

  Then the hand let go his throat and he felt his legs loosed. He was snatched unceremoniously upright, spun round before he had opportunity to identify his captor, and shoved toward the glow of the fire. Bracht, Katya, and Cennaire lay beside the deceptively cheerful blaze, like animals trussed for slaughter. Around them stood figures clad in dark armor, their faces masked behind veils of woven mail. Like executioners, Calandryll thought.

  A kick sent him down, gasping as he struck the ground, stretched beside Bracht. The Kern's eyes were closed, but his chest rose and fell against the bonds encircling his body. Calandryll saw that they were some manner of throwing device—long leather cords weighted at their ends with small metal balls. He looked across the supine Kern and saw that Katya and Cennaire were similarly entangled, though both the women were conscious. Katya's expression was angry, her grey eyes stormy in the fire'^ light; Cennaire appeared confused and thoughtful. He assumed she wondered what fate awaited her and said, "Did they plan to slay us, it would be done by now."

  He intended to reassure her: he could not know she thought of snapping her bonds and fleeing. He was about to speak again, but a boot drove the air from his lungs, and a hand gestured for him to be silent. He groaned and turned his gaze to his captors.

  Nine of them stood there, what expressions their faces might have held masked by the concealing veils. He studied them, seeing conical helmets from under which dangled ringlets of oiled hair, dark as the armor they wore. Breastplates covered their chests, rerebraces and vambraces their arms, gauntlets their hands, cuisses and greaves their legs, all black save where the fireglow was reflected, red as blood. Wide belts circled their tas- sets, each holding two scabbards, one for the deep-curved swords they wore, the other for the wide-bladed knives. They were menacing figures, the more so for their silent contemplation.

  Calandryll wondered what thoughts passed behind the veils. Those curtains were cut with eye holes, but he could read no expressions there: it was as if nine automatons regarded him, creatures of metal standing in judgment.

  Then one spoke, a few harsh words, and the captives were hauled to their feet, their legs unbound. Bracht groaned, swaying dizzily, and two men— Jesserytes, Calandryll assumed—took bis arms, supporting him until he steadied himself, shaking his head and blinking.

  "Ahrd! Are we taken? I heard you shout ..."

  The Jesserytes' leader spoke again, clearly ordering the Kern to silence. Bracht spat, the gobbet landing between the man's boots. He laughed, as if he approved such defiance, and barked another order, pointing toward the cliff, then touching a hand to Bracht's lips, withdrawing it to make a slicing motion across his throat that was clear indication of his meaning. A further burst of curt orders set leathern gags in the prisoners' mouths, and the Jesseryte pointed again at the cliff, then beckoned and strode away.

  Five warriors formed about the prisoners, shoving them roughl
y after, and the remaining three loosed the horses from their hobbles, bringing up the rear.

  It was an ominously silent procession. None spoke, and their passage was marked only by the creak of leather, the slow clopping of hooves, as they clambered among the rocks, moving, Calandryll assumed, toward the north foot of the Daggan Vhe. He drew some measure of hope from that, small solace, but all he had. He had spoken instinctively to Cennaire, looking to reassure a woman he assumed was terrified, but now saw the truth of his statement: did the Jesserytes intend to slay intruders in their land, they would surely have killed them where they lay. No less, was Rhythamun numbered among the faceless warriors, he would surely have destroyed the questers on sight. For some reason he did not comprehend, they were kept alive. For subsequent execution? For reasons obscure to any save the Jesserytes? He did not know, but that they were alive allowed a degree of optimism.

  He clung to that thought as he stumbled, awkward with tight-bound arms, through the rock-strewn shadows. .

  In a while they reached a ledge where small, caparisoned horses stood tethered, tended by a single warrior who barked a greeting as the Jesserytes7 leader approached. It was answered in the same incomprehensible tongue and the guard brought one animal forward, dropping on hands and knees that the leader might use his back for a mounting step. Another guttural exclamation had the captives disarmed and slung roughly astride their own mounts with wrists lashed to the saddle horns, thongs binding ankles to stirrups. Cennaire was tossed astride Katya's grey, behind the warrior woman, a cord passed about both their waists. The Jesserytes mounted, a man taking up the reins of each larger horse, another falling into station immediately behind, and they started across the ledge.

  Calandryll wondered if their captors knew the way so well they dared attempt the trail by darkness, or if their night vision was unusually developed. Whichever, they moved at a brisk pace through the maze of gullies and basal canyons spread about the foot of this northern wall of the

  Kess Imbrun, trotting where the way allowed, holding to a fast walk where the road climbed.

  In time it rose clear of the lower convolutions and the elevation allowed the moon to light the way. The lunar disk was fattened and the night was clear, cloudless: Calandryll saw the ribbon of the Blood Road winding precipitously ahead, an unnerving path for a man with bound arms. He clenched his teeth against the threat of panic, telling himself these strange and silent men were not—at least, not yet—ready to see him die. Even so, it was a disconcerting prospect that he sought to combat by studying them closer.

  Their armor, he saw, was polished jet, marked on chest and back with yellow symbols. Some form of clan insignia, he guessed, for the leader wore the same sign, though his back also bore another marking—of rank, presumably—and the cloths that dressed the little horses were similarly decorated.

  He forced himself to relax in the saddle, knees firm against the chestnut gelding's ribs as it dutifully followed the smaller animal ahead. The Jesseryte beasts were not much larger than ponies, but surefooted, taking the dizzying trail without hesitation, climbing steadily upward, as if they traversed some gentle gradient rather than a road that before long dropped away on one side or the other into a moonlit infinity. Their hooves clattered a busy counterpoint to the sighing song of the night wind, rising above the grumbling of the cascades, those soon enough lost in the distance. There were no other sounds. The masked men said nothing; nor, under threat of blows, did the captives protest, only rode, each in turn wondering where they went, and why.

  CENNAIRE, pressed hard against Katya's back, thought again of snapping her bonds and flinging herself clear of the grey horse, and again discarded the notion. In part it was from fear of bringing the horse down with her, both tumbling over the precipice that loomed scant feet to her right. She was confident the fall would not—could not—kill her, but by no means so sure she would escape injury. Without a living heart to animate her body, she knew she must defy death, but it remained possible her bones would break, and the thought of lying broken, perhaps helpless, in the depths of the Kess Imbrun was an idea unappealing as the thought of what such a descent must do to her beauty. Equally, such action must end her alliance with the questers, and so it was better, she decided, to continue in her role of mortal woman, to act the helpless prisoner and see what the future held.

  Did things come to such a pass, she could free herself later. For now, she would wait.

  BRACHT, his head still ringing from the blow that had felled him, thought mostly of holding his seat: the black stallion afforded him concern enough he had little room for much else. The horse resented the indignity of a lead rein, snatching against the leathers and snorting irritably, ears flattened back and head tossing whenever the halter slackened. The Kern did his best to calm the beast, urging it on with knees and soft murmurings, aware that did it succeed in breaking free it would certainly attack the smaller animals ahead and behind, and in the process no less certainly find its way over the road's rim.

  He did not think the Jesserytes would let him live—the hostility of the horseclans of Cuan na'For and the folk of the Jesseryn Plain was ogygian, long-rooted in times past, a matter of tradition. He assumed they were taken alive only that their deaths might be prolonged, an amusement for their captors. All he had heard of the people of the Forbidden Country suggested that—that they were little more than beasts, savages who pleasured themselves with the torture of prisoners. That, or the transformation of captives into slaves, which was the worse option—involuntarily, he shuddered at the thought: male slaves were gelded.

  He bit hard on the thong that gagged him, abruptly aware of the pressure of his saddle between his thighs, chancing a swift glance back, to where Katya was led, behind him. She was no woman to accept slavery, to allow herself to become the plaything of some Jesseryte lordling—she would die, rather.

  That thought, and the simple determination that while he yet lived he must not give up hope of defeating Rhythamun, held him back from the alternative he would have taken had he been alone. Were he alone, he would have given the stallion its head, urged the great horse to vent its anger, and taken a Jesseryte or two over the cliff with him. Instead, he sought to calm the beast, the sullen pounding in his skull resolving into sullen anger.

  For now he would cling to life.

  FOR her part, Katya rode confused. She knew nothing of the Jesserytes save what she had heard from Bracht, and none of that promising. Yet the strange warriors, for all their treatment of the prisoners was brusque, had offered no real harm. They had come out of the night so suddenly, so silently, they seemed, in their dark armor, like ghosts. She had heard Bracht's shout and woken with hand on swordhilt—only to find her arms pinioned before the saber had chance to clear the scabbard, her legs an eyeblink after. She had seen Bracht come to his feet and fall in the same moment, thinking at first an arrow took him—such thought horrifying—then seeing that he was bound by the curious throwing ropes that whirled and whistled from the shadows. A gauntleted hand had clubbed him down when he struggled to rise, but that had been all: there had been no further violence offered.

  She wondered why she—why all of them—lived still. Everything Bracht had told her of the Jesserytes suggested they slew intruders on sight, yet these appeared bent on taking them captive. Why?

  A possible answer chilled her: because Rhythamun had ordered it so.

  Because the mage had found himself in some elevated station in his new form, and sent minions to ward his back, with orders to take his pursuers alive. Such would likely be his way: to gloat before commanding their execution.

  Yet, were that the way of it, surely questions must arise. Surely Rhythamun must justify his knowledge—and how else could he know he was pursued, save through magic? In which case, she told herself, as calmly as she was able, he must reveal himself for a wizard. Would whatever sorcerers the Jesserytes bred accept him so readily? Were her suspicion correct, yes. In which case, the quest was ended, Rhythamun victor
ious.

  She bit hard against her gag, seeking calm against the despair that threatened to overwhelm her. She must not give in! She must hold to the vows made in Vanu and Tezin-dar, and while she still lived, cling to what tenuous fragments of hope yet existed.

  So it was that each of them, in their own fashion, chose to live on, to cling to hope until that precious commodity should be finally expended, as the procession wound its way up the Daggan Vhe.

  They climbed through what was left of the night, the sky above paling toward dawn before a halt was called, on a massive ledge where a wide-mouthed cavern ran back into the cliff's wall.

  The Jesserytes' leader walked his mount into the cave and dismounted, his men not following until he barked an order, then swinging down, bustling about with the economic efficiency of a well- disciplined band entering a familiar refuge. Calandryll watched, puzzled and intrigued, as the ponies were led in, tethered to one side, fodder obviously stored against such visitation piled in mangers of rock. Two men built a fire, fetching kindling and cut logs from niches in the cave walls, and others brought provisions from similar caches. Flambeaux were lit, their flames joining with the fire to illuminate the interior. One man remained watchful beside each prisoner, waiting stoically until their leader issued another order that had the bonds about the captives' ankles freed, the thongs binding them to the saddle horns loosed. They were still confined by short lengths of leather around their wrists, dismounting awkwardly to find themselves pushed into the cave. Men took their horses, and it came to Calandryll that the Jesserytes were somewhat awed by the larger animals, Bracht's stallion in particular, for their silence was broken by anxious mutterings when the beast whickered irritably and began to plunge against the reins.

  Bracht turned back then, his sullen face abruptly anxious as the black horse threatened to fight loose, to plunge over the cliff. A warrior blocked his way, hand raised to halt the Kern, who mouthed a muffled curse, his eyes flashing angry as the stallion's. Calandryll feared he would be clubbed down anew, but a word from the Jesseryte chieftain—if such he was—set the man aside, allowing Bracht to go to the stallion, murmuring soothingly through his gag, taking the reins and leading the horse after the others.