Wizardborn (29 page)

She took the hand that rested on her belly, squeezed it and thus held him. But neither spoke for a long time. She had not yet broached the topic of going to Inkarra with him, and she dreaded it. Her husband had to know that she planned to go.

Seven miles north of Carris, they spotted a warhorse trailing its reins, pawing the ground as it looked for forage in the deadlands. They had to ride across a mile of blackened hills to get to it. Blood spattered across its back suggested that no owner would come seeking its services, so Borenson took the animal.

By the time they reached Carris, Gaborn had already left. People had begun to flee the city. With the reavers gone and the darkness lifted, refugees had already begun to choke every road for miles.

Common soldiers out of Mystarria and Indhopal were heading north to repair and defend Mystarria's shattered castles. Weary footmen marched over the blackened land with heavy packs on their backs. The rest of the citizenry departed by whatever road they saw fit.

Hundreds of people had climbed to the lip of the giant wormhole.

Myrrima and Borenson stopped in Carris only long enough for Borenson to take half a dozen endowments—one each of brawn, grace, wit, hearing, sight, and metabolism. Then Borenson left orders that other endowments be added over the next day. Because of the foul air hanging over the city, he dared take no endowments of stamina, lest his Dedicate take sick and die. He would have to wait for it.

Afterward, they left the city, and Borenson stopped to hammer a pair of teeth from a reaver as war trophies, one for him and one for her. He said that he would have them carved.

Afterward they raced past Carris, and soon reached the
Brace Mountains. The lower flanks of the foothills were a dim gray, but farther up the autumn colors sizzled on the mountainsides, and a fresh snow dazzled the peaks.

The reavers had cut a trail through the mountains, but Myrrima and Borenson followed the road.

Soon they would catch up with Gaborn. Myrrima dreaded the meeting: she considered what she should really say if the knights and lords asked about her husband's injury.

   21   

The bone structure of the reaver's head is extraordinary. The head is shaped roughly like a spade. Many a lord has witnessed a reaver digging with it.

Three bony plates on the head make this digging possible, forming the “blade” of the reaver, as it is sometimes called. The plates are so heavily armored that no lance could ever pierce them. But the plates are held together with tough cartilage, and under extreme pressure, each plate can move independently.

Thus, reavers, like cockroaches, have been seen to squeeze themselves between rocks in situations where it would seem impossible. Raj Chamanuran of Indhopal once witnessed a twenty-foot-tall reaver compress itself down enough to wedge into a tunnel beneath a stone cliff that was a “cobra” in height
—
about seven feet high.

These movable plates would seem a marvel of design. Yet they are also the reaver's greatest weakness.

The shovel-shaped skull leaves the reavers' brainpan close to the surface
—
a distance of only a foot on a moderate-sized reaver. The three plates of bone meet roughly at this spot, forming the reaver's “sweet triangle,” its most vulnerable spot.

—
Excerpt from
A Comparison of Reports on Reavers,
by Hearthmaster Dungiles

In the foothills south of the Brace Mountains, Gaborn's road opened to a switchback on a plateau. The sky had
dusted the Brace with snow during the night, but here the morning was cool and the ground clear.

He halted beneath a trio of poplars, and his Days drew rein beside him. Their golden leaves rustled in the wind as he gazed down on the plains below. Reavers marched down there in a line, some sixty thousand strong. The reavers trekked in loose ranks eight or ten individuals across, in a line no less than ten miles long. They wove among the hills, crossing a silver stream crowded with woods. If Gaborn squinted, the reavers looked like a huge gray serpent slithering across the cold grasslands. Ahead, the old fallen castle at Mangan's Rock loomed just out of the serpent's reach, with the great statue of Mangan himself standing boldly, staring above the monsters.

Iome gasped at the sight, and whispered, “I never imagined there would be so many.” Gaborn knew that she had seen images of them in Binnesman's Seer Stones, but somehow the stones had not conveyed the enormity of what they faced.

Even at this distance, the ground rumbled at their passage, and the hissing as they vented air was a muted whisper.

He gazed upon them in consternation. The reaver he sought had to be down there, somewhere.

Skalbairn's men had killed many reavers during the night, but Gaborn's search among the dead for the Way-maker yielded nothing. Averan had examined two reavers that nearly matched her description. Both turned out to be too small.

Which meant that the reaver he sought was still alive.

The hills were dry and nearly barren south of the mountains. The rainstorm last night had missed this land completely. Dust rose up from the feet of the reavers like a trail of drifting smoke that mingled with the gree that flocked overhead.

To the west of the reavers Skalbairn's men rode in two separate bands. One band of a thousand knights kept pace with the reavers about six miles ahead. The noonday sun
flashed off shield and helm and lance. The men looked petty, insignificant. The rest of the army, perhaps another fifteen hundred knights along with various squires and a caravan of wains, ventured near the tail of the reavers' lines, riding as a sort of rear guard to confront the reavers if they should turn back to Carris. Lances bristled up among their ranks like white spines.

Gaborn's mouth grew dry from anticipation. He could sense a rising danger. The reavers would not let this go on, would not be harried like this.

Gaborn's heralds blew their golden horns.

Down on the plain Skalbairn's men turned, looked up to the hills, and began to cheer. They waved lances and shields. Several men in Skalbairn's company peeled off, came galloping across the plains toward him. Gaborn decided to wait, get Skalbairn's latest report.

“Company, halt!” Gaborn called to his troops. Nearly half a mile back, the giants were still running hard, trying to keep up. One of them roared in anticipation of a few moments' rest.

Beside him, Binnesman's wylde spotted the reavers and cried out in delight, “Reaver blood!”

“Yes,” Averan whispered excitedly, like a little girl talking to her best friend. “I'll bet there's some yummy ones out there.”

Gaborn glanced over at the child resting comfortably on the saddle with the wizard at her back. She focused totally on the reavers.

“Tell me,” Gaborn said. “This Waymaker. Do you think you could spot it from a distance if we rode alongside the reavers' ranks?”

Averan looked terrified at the very notion. “If we got close enough.”

But he knew it would be almost impossible. The reavers were running in a horde, and no one would dare get within three hundred yards of them.

“Do you have any hint where we might start looking?” Gaborn asked in frustration.

“I… don't know. There are lots of reavers. He's important, so he should be up near the front. Or maybe near the back.”

“Or perhaps in the middle,” one lord offered.

“Can you add to the description?” Gaborn said. “I might be able to put my far-seers to use.”

Averan shook her head. “I… don't think I can add anything. Reavers don't have eyes. They don't see things like we do. I—I might be able to recognize him by the smell—but then, I might not. I'm not sure that people can smell as good as reavers do.”

Gaborn grinned coldly.

“If we find it,” Averan asked. “Do I have to eat it in front of people?”

One of the lords in the retinue made a coughing noise, to cover the sound of his laugh.

“No,” Gaborn promised.

At that moment, there was the sound of galloping hooves on the trail behind, and Gaborn looked back up the road, expecting another messenger.

A young man with straw-colored hair rode into view round the bend on a plain brown mare. He slowed and warily eyed the frowth giants as he passed beneath their shadows. Gaborn tried vainly to remember where he'd seen the man. He could not place him, until he saw the pickax hanging from his saddlebags. “Baron Waggit,” the lords began to mutter. The baron was wearing a new brown robe and leather armor, and had his yellow hair tied back. And he wore a new light of understanding in his eyes. Thus attired, his own mother would have been hard put to identify him.

The young baron rode up. He studied the king's men as if he'd never truly seen them before.

He reached the back of the king's retinue, rode past the knights and lords, and they broke into a cheer as he neared.

He reined in his mount just before Gaborn. The smell of rum followed him.

“Baron Waggit, you're looking well,” Gaborn said.

Waggit wiped his nose on his sleeve in a foolish habit. “Thanks. Um, thank you. Uh, milord.” He still knew nothing of courtly graces. He might have the sense of a common man now, but he had much to learn.

“Will you ride beside me?” Gaborn offered.

“I… don't think so,” Waggit said. “I mean, I couldn't. I'm not a real fighter—not like you lords. I only got one endowment, and it's just enough to make me a commoner. Don't know what I could do for you. I can't even cook my own damned dinner. I had to have a stableboy show me how to saddle this beast. I only come to say ‘thank you.' I never dreamt… how it could be.”

“Not a real fighter?” Gaborn asked. “You slew nine reavers with a pickax.”

“Dumb luck, that was,” Waggit said. He waited for Gaborn to smile at the joke. He'd caught sight of the reavers now, stared down at them.

“If you will not ride as a warrior,” Gaborn offered, “then ride beside me as a friend. You'll learn to cook your own dinner fast enough, and maybe you'll learn some other things that will serve you well.”

“I guess,” Waggit said, “if you'll have me.”

A lord behind him said, “Good man!” and the other lords shouted, “Hurrah!” as if he were some champion come to fight at their side.

More hoofbeats sounded and two riders appeared round the bend this time: Sir Borenson and Myrrima, riding side by side. They galloped down the mountain. Gaborn's entourage could not help themselves. Knights began to cheer and wave their weapons, shouting, “Hail Sir Borenson! See how well he rides!”

Borenson's face turned scarlet, and he nodded sheepishly. Someone shouted, “Did you grow any spare walnuts for me?” and someone else called out, “Riding a horse with them is only
half the
test!” Gaborn's heralds began blowing their horns in a cacophonous salute, and the men would not stop ribbing Borenson until he spoke.

He reined in his mount and raised his hands. “Hear,
hear,” he called. “It is indeed true, thank you! I've grown three huge walnuts, and each twice as hairy as anything you've ever seen on a dog!”