Wren looked him up and down. "Where's your gear?"
"In my room. I just—" He shook his head, biting off the words. With the Song filling his mind, he could barely think straight. "Ravagers are attacking Vathda."
"We know," Wren said bitingly. "So let's go!"
"We have to secure our mounts first and understand the situation," Ashelia said, level-headed as usual. "We may have to flee if the attack is severe. Helnor and Aelyn have gone ahead; we'll meet them there."
"What about Falcon and Rolan?" Garin asked. "And where's Kaleras?"
"The old man left, so he's on his own," Wren said ruthlessly. "And my old man is in here with the kid."
Peering around them, he made out Falcon looking toward them from beside the beds, his expression forlorn. No doubt he regretted his daughter once again throwing herself into danger while he remained sheltered. Rolan, for his part, seemed to take comfort in the bard's presence, for he curled into his side.
"Hurry, Garin," Ashelia urged, she and Wren pushing past him and closing the door behind. "We can't delay."
His heart in his throat, the Song in his head, Garin ran to his room to fetch his sword and shield.
Tal raised his head to the glow of flames.
He carried a rent shield in one hand and a dwarven battle-axe in the other. They'd belonged to Dathal, whose body he'd discovered at the end of the cave. Around him had been the fallen bodies of Easterners, from every different Bloodline. Though most had been burned beyond recognition — for a reason he could not divine — he saw enough to tell the newcomers were clad for war.
Ravagers. At once, Tal understood the threat he faced.
It had not taken him long to work out the reason why they'd come. Ravagers had waylaid the Dancing Feathers on the road to Gladelyl. They had haunted the streets of Low Elendol and even the kintrees of the Sanguine City. Everywhere Tal went, the hunters of Yuldor had followed.
I'm the one they want.
A smile pulled tight across his tortured lips. He'd seen the campfires of the Easterners before entering Vathda, far in the distance. He hadn't fully understood what they signaled then.
He knew far too well now.
"My fault," he muttered as he trudged along the packed snow. The sack of Vathda was another sin he could line up next to the others. If he'd never come here, the Hardrog dwarves would have been spared another tragedy at his hands.
Even Dathal deserved better than to die at the end of a headhunter's sword.
Death's Hand... A truer name than I knew.
The edge of the town came into view, and the source of the flames became apparent. The great hall had been targeted first, telling from the fire's progression, while the other edifices had only recently ignited. Yet, from the sounds and the flashes of shadows across the snow, that was where the fighting remained thickest.
Tal sucked in a ragged breath and adjusted his course. He had no more armor than the tattered clothes he wore, no other resources beyond the pilfered axe and shield and his unreliable sorcery. He was exhausted, starving, and worn entirely through.
But he'd given his word to a dying man. This was his responsibility. He would either put an end to it, or he would die in the attempt.
A snarling grin claimed him as Tal emerged from the standing stones and dove into the fray.
A body immediately pitched by him, unidentifiable as it rolled away. Tal caught a glimpse of the seething mass of other shapes in conflict before a second figure lurched toward him. A minotaur — the shape of its horned head was unmistakable on its tall, powerful body.
The Ravager roared as it chopped down with a double-headed axe. Tal couldn't completely dodge it and took the blow on the corner of his shield. The impact jarred through to his shoulder. The wood splintered further, scraping painfully across the top of his head before flying behind him.
He spun away from any immediate follow-up. But the minotaur had made no attempt, instead grinding his hooves into the cold earth. Either he guessed Tal to be an enemy or he didn't care whom he fought. Bloodlust filled the dark, bullish eyes as he advanced.
Tal knew he was outmatched in every way. After his days of deprivation, his opponent was stronger, quicker, and haler. No paper legend would protect him from the cutting edge of an axe.
But if he'd learned one thing from his old army commander, it was how to even the odds in an unfair contest.
Tal let a trickle of his sorcery work free with a mumbled word and a flash of light. He squeezed his eyes shut and guessed by the enraged howl of his opponent that the minotaur had not followed suit. Opening them as he pivoted to the side, Tal saw his chance and took it, lunging forward to hook his axe around his enemy's ankle and heaving.
The minotaur stood firm beneath his feeble efforts.
"Yuldor's prick," Tal breathed as he released the axe and threw himself back. Just in time — the Ravager's retaliation swung past him, even the air seeming sharp. Weaponless and reeling, Tal tottered to the frozen dirt before finding his balance.
The minotaur recovered quicker. Bellowing, it charged toward him, axe positioned over one shoulder like a logger.
Tal raised his shield without much hope. But his other hand outstretched toward the hooves pounding on the ground. Two words rattled off in quick succession.
"Lisk — wuld!"
Even as crystals of ice cascaded from his hand to spread over the ground, a gust packing the power of a charging bull followed. Both found their way to the minotaur's legs, and what Tal had failed to do with his physical strength, he accomplished with his sorcery.
The minotaur collapsed, his eyes widening. As he thudded to the ground, his uplifted axe slipped from his hands and dug into his back, provoking a fresh roar of pain.
Tal fell upon him, driving down the ragged rim of his shield onto the Ravager's head once, twice, thrice. Only as he went limp did Tal throw down the ruined wood and stumble back. He gasped for breath and tried not to look at the ruined body he left behind.
As he recovered, Tal focused again on his surroundings. The battle raged on, as fierce and hot as ever. He suddenly realized he had no hope of turning the tide. He'd barely managed to overcome one invader and was still paying the price for it. The sorcery from the cantrips had reawakened the canker inside him, and it took all he had not to bend over with the pain.
In that moment, the blaze hot on his skin and the sorcery curdling his blood, Tal could think of only one thing he might do.
The Ravagers had come to Vathda because of him. Perhaps they would leave on the same account.
Tal stumbled away from the fight toward the rear of the great hall and headed for the stables.
The battle found them around the first standing stone.
Garin barely had time to raise his shield before a body bolted out of the darkness to crash into him. He careened off his assailant and nearly lost his footing. It took an effort not to flail his arms, for with his sword in hand, he might have carved new scars into Wren or Ashelia.
"Silence!" he gasped as he tried to take stock of his attacker. Wren and Ashelia already had the man at sword point. Blubbering, he raised his hands, empty of weapons, and flinched against the light that blazed into Wren's hand. Garin breathed a sigh of relief. It was a dwarf who cowered before them, bare-headed and bloody. After a moment, he recognized him as the friendly doorman from the evening they had arrived.
"Please!" the dwarf whimpered, barely daring to look up at their blades. "Please, don't — I just couldn't stay, had to breathe a moment, you see, you see?" He could barely suck in air around the excuses spilling from his mouth.
Wren let out a disgusted huff as she withdrew her rapier, while Ashelia seemed made of stone.
"Flee," the Peer told the dwarf, and the doorman obeyed her at once. Soon, he was swallowed by the darkness.
They continued on, Garin leading them again with his shield raised. He moved more cautiously now. The battle neared, the burning buildings illuminating the melee. Smoke choked the air. Garin
's lungs seared with every breath.
Above even the pitch of violence, the Song soared through his thoughts, growing more harmonious and enthralling with each passing moment.
Do not listen overlong, Ilvuan cautioned him, but the Singer's voice was distant, a discordant hiss amid the other sounds. Still, Garin heeded the words. Though how he would obey them was an entirely different matter.
They turned the corner, and the conflict spread out along the commons before them. Silhouettes staggered to and fro as if they were drunk on the deck of a riverboat. Bodies of dwarves and Ravagers alike lay strewn and bloody along the thoroughfare, more bodies than Garin had seen even in Elendol. And still, as exhaustion pulled at the limbs of attackers and defenders alike, the battle raged on.
"Come on!" Wren pulled at his arm, tugging him toward the outer edges of the town commons and away from the fighting, to Garin's relief. He cast one last glance back before following.
They ran past what he remembered to be the baths, which had devolved into little more than a pile of smoldering rubble. There were fewer shapes here, only small knots of fighting that Wren easily led them around.
Reaching the far end of the commons' exterior, the great hall rose above them. Garin squinted painfully at it, searching for the stables. But if any part of them remained intact, he couldn't distinguish them. All was lost to the flames. He just hoped their stors had stolen free beforehand. Horn and his fellows didn't deserve such a horrible end.
Wren, coming to the same conclusion, turned back to Ashelia. "Now what?"
But no sooner had she spoken than Garin detected movement in the darkness. Having just stared into the flames, his night vision had been ruined. Muttering "Fashk," he held up his shield hand and illuminated the darkness.
Reflective eyes shined back at them, set in the familiar shape of a stor's horned head. More lingered behind the first.
"They stayed!" Relief flooded him at the sight of the mounts.
"They're loyal beasts," Ashelia confirmed. But her eyes only flitted to them for a moment before turning back to the town proper.
With a start, Garin realized why. Four figures were charging them, and these didn't have the shape of dwarves.
"Finally!" Wren wore a manic grin as she fell into a balanced stance he recognized as the Form of Water. Her free hand opened, ready for sorcery.
Garin followed her lead, though he adopted the Form of Stone, making his body firm and his stance strong, braced for anything they might throw against him. He strained to remember all that he had learned of swordplay in Elendol. Yet with the angelic Song filling his skull, it felt as if this were all a dream.
The first blow against his shield put a swift end to that fantasy.
Tal stumbled around the backside of the burning great hall only to find the stables hopelessly ablaze.
"So much for that grand scheme," he muttered as he cast his gaze around. He didn't have much hope of finding a mount, but this had been his last hope of both survival and helping Vathda. Now, he could only try to achieve the latter.
At the edge of another burning building, two groups fought against each other. Sorcery flared from several of them, fire lashing against their opponents. Tal winced. Nightelves numbered among the Ravagers. Though the sizes of the figures seemed wrong, dwarves couldn't use magic. A few more of Vathda's citizens were falling, no doubt.
Save them, at least, a mocking voice whispered in his mind.
But just as Tal made a move toward them, his eyes caught on something in the darkness. Tensing for an attack, he let out a shaky laugh when he saw what it was. Not Ravagers emerging for an ambush; impossibly, it was his stor.
How Folly had followed him to Vathda, he couldn't comprehend, for he'd lost the stor when the ijiraq threw him into the river. Yet the Gladelysh had always boasted of the creatures' fidelity. Here was the proof.
"Folly — here, old boy." Though urgency pulled at him, Tal moved slowly toward the stor, holding out his free hand. "It's me, remember?"
The stor stayed stock still, his eyes wary. Tal wondered if he'd always been so large. Somehow, he remembered Folly being an inch shorter.
People are dying, the mocking voice came again, and you're worried if you noted a stor's height correctly?
"Here, come here, that's a good boy." Tal managed to rest a hand on the stor's muzzle and gave him a brief stroke. The stor remained unaffectionate, but he could hardly expect it to be relaxed with blood and smoke in the air.
The beast had lost his tack in the intervening days. It seemed he would have to ride bareback.
"Do I hold onto the horns then?" he muttered as he dragged himself onto the stor's back. The creature bugled in protest, skirting to the side so that Tal almost fell off. But he just managed to loop his leg over and right himself.
"Right, then," he said between breaths. "Hope you're rested for a ride. Yah!"
With a press of his heels, Tal gripped what tufts of hair he could on the stor's back and clung desperately as the beast surged beneath him. He tugged on the hair as if they were reins, but if the stor understood, it didn't comply, but bolted instead for the darkness.
"No, Silence take you! Back to Vathda!"
It took far longer than the settlement could afford to turn the stor in the right direction. Even then, he could compel it to advance only so close to the burning town commons. The beast had far more sense than Tal himself did.
But he had a promise to keep and a people to protect. And this was the only path left to take.
Drawing in a breath, Tal recalled to mind the words he'd prepared earlier for this moment. Then he spoke them, loud and clear.
"Jes fold roldan."
He felt the sorcery pull from his blood and the air from his lungs in a painful rush. Needles stabbed not only into his skull, but everywhere his veins spread. He could barely suck in another breath to make use of the spell he'd cast.
"Ravagers!" Despite how thin his voice felt leaving his body, it boomed into the night. "Venators! Is it not me you seek?"
His ensorcelled voice thundered louder even than the battle. As he watched, many of the combatants fell away from each other to stare toward him, while some tried to take advantage of the distraction.
He could only continue. "It is I, Tal Harrenfel! I am the one your master fears! Waste your time with the dwarves — I care not. But linger, and you will fail in your purpose."
He didn't know if the melodrama would inflame or deter them. All he could hope was his guess was accurate: that he was, indeed, the instigator of this raid. And that the promise of their quarry might lead them away.
"So much for being the finest headhunters in the East!" With a final laugh, Tal cut away the spell and tried to turn his stor around. The beast only fought him for a moment before realizing they could, at last, flee into the darkness. As the stor surged beneath him, nearly unseating him, Tal spared one last look for Vathda.
He grinned at what he saw. The Ravagers, dark shapes against the flames, were running after him. They were on foot while he rode. His plan stood a chance of success — and he might even remain alive.
But with only the moons to guide him across a treacherous landscape and a long ride ahead, Tal knew there was plenty of time for his luck to run out.
"Fly, Folly," he croaked, and the stor kicked into a gallop.
"Ravagers! Venators! Is it not me you seek?"
The shock that ran through Garin at the voice nearly got him killed. Momentarily distracted, he only just managed to raise his shield to accept the missile slung by the gnome he faced. Stone cracked against the wood with unnatural force. The small Easterner must have imbued the rock with some of its strange sorcery, for it split the shield down its middle, numbed Garin's arm to the bone, and staggered him.
He gasped with pain even as his mind whirled over the impossibility that had greeted his ears. But he couldn't afford another moment's lapse. He couldn't stop to process what he'd just heard — who he had just heard.
But t
he speech continued, unveiling the revelation for him.
"It is I, Tal Harrenfel! I am the one your master fears! Waste your time with the dwarves — I care not. But linger, and you will fail in your purpose."
The voice, the bluster, the words — Garin knew what the man said must be true. Tal was projecting his words for all of Vathda to hear. Tal was here.
"So much for being the finest headhunters in the East!"
He had no more time to process what it all meant. The gnome was spinning another stone, and this time, he saw the crackle of energy around the sling. With his shield ruined, whatever sorcery it had in store for him could prove fatal.
With a strangled cry, Garin lunged with his sword. The gnome, his face twisted into a scowl, released the stone.
Lightning flashed.
The searing energy crackled over Garin's skin. He screamed. His muscles spasmed and crumpled. Yet at the same time, the Song, ever humming inside Garin, rose in volume. It pushed on his flesh, seeming on the verge of breaking free of his body.
The pain eased as abruptly as it came. Garin found himself on his knees and raised his head. The gnome, only just setting another stone to his sling, startled at his sudden recovery, then urgently began to wind up again.
Garin didn't give him the chance.
Leaping to his feet with newfound vitality, he jabbed his sword across the short distance between them. Though the Easterner tried to jerk away, the steel found the flesh above his collarbone. Pushing aside his horror and guilt, Garin stabbed the sword down for a final blow through his neck.
The gnome lay at his feet, eyes open wide with the vestiges of pain, his blood leaking over the slushy ground. Small as his stature was, he resembled a human child. The thought made Garin horribly queasy.
Swallowing hard, he jerked his head up and looked around. Wren and Ashelia had joined forces to cut down the human Ravager still standing. As Wren's eyes met his, he saw his bewilderment reflected back. But it was Ashelia who spoke.
An Emperor's Gamble (Legend of Tal: Book 3) Page 12