Wizardborn (39 page)

Gaborn could see no reavers nearby, no one close at all.

“Iome,” Gaborn said tentatively, “someone wants you dead. Do you know who?”

She looked at him evenly, nostrils flaring. Still, he could see no antagonist. He wondered if the danger was within her—a weak heart or some hidden ailment.

Distantly there was an explosive sound—almost a scream—a crash of wind racing over the plains a mile to the south. It rose from the dead air, hurling grass and limbs from full-grown oak trees into the sky. It raised a front of
dust like a rising pall nearly half a mile wide.

Gaborn had heard that sound before in the forest of the Dunnwood—the shrieking wind, the clash of lightning. He knew what creature rushed toward them.

He spun toward it. Before the storm, rode three men on pale horses. He wondered who they were.

Iome shouted her answer: “The Darkling Glory!”

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A good servant does not concern himself with dignity. No act of service for his lord should be too mean or too small.

—
Kaifba Jureem

Feykaald had seen enough of the Earth King's camp. He'd seen Gaborn's forcibles. He'd watched Gaborn order a devastating charge against the reavers. He'd seen men defy Gaborn as he sought to warn them with a warhorn.

He'd guessed at both Gaborn's strengths and his limitations. He'd learned that Gaborn would not help Indhopal, no matter how great the argument. Unlike Jureem, Feykaald could see no reason to serve the lad.

Gaborn was a fallen Earth King, nothing more.

Only one reason remained for Feykaald to stay near—the forcibles.

Not in his wildest imaginings had Feykaald believed that Gaborn would have left so many forcibles unused.

All morning he'd wondered what Gaborn planned to do with them, why he hoarded them.

Perhaps Gaborn was too cautious. Perhaps he was the kind of man who insisted on taking endowments himself, rather than vectoring. Perhaps he wanted to give his facilitators time to pick through the finest prospective Dedicates in the kingdom, those with the greatest strength, the keenest intellect, or the most perfect health.

If that were the case, Feykaald could not argue with Gaborn's purpose. Perhaps, Feykaald thought, this boy is wiser than I gave him credit for.

But Feykaald had no more time to speculate.

He waited only for the right moment. He expected that the reavers would provide it—create enough of a diversion so that he could load a box of forcibles onto a palfrey and make his escape.

The right moment came sooner than he'd anticipated, and from unexpected quarters.

The wall of wind roared toward the camp, rising in the air. Suddenly the swirling dust thrown by the front reared up and obscured the sun.

Three riders thundered before the storm. Lightning flashed along the length of their lances. On Mangan's Rock, the reavers all hissed and roared.

Gaborn sounded a warhorn. His guards rushed to his side. The wizard Binnesman had been watching his wylde. Now they both ran toward their king. Though Gaborn had thousands of knights in his retinue, most of them were scattered for miles around the perimeter of Mangan's Rock.

The treasure wagon was perhaps one hundred yards east of Gaborn, along with dozens of other supply wagons. The guards that had been standing around the wains drew their warhammers and sprinted for Gaborn, intent on protecting their king.

Instantly, Feykaald took the reins of his mount, scrambled for the treasure.

Jureem drew his curved saber, hastened toward Gaborn's back.

All morning he had been watching Feykaald, knowing that something was wrong. He'd been waiting for that moment when the old deaf spider sought to creep out of the camp.

Now as the wind and riders approached, he glanced from the corner of his eye and spotted Feykaald's dark burnoose, saw the old man take the reins of his horse. The big gray Imperial stallion whinnied and fought, frightened by the sudden roar of wind.

Soil and blades of grass hurtled through the air. Jureem raised his arm to shield his eyes. He shouted a warning to the guards, but for the moment the greater danger was to his king.

The wind screamed through the grass, came at Myrrima in a blinding storm.

She'd wondered why Gaborn had begged her to stay here in the camp with him and Iome for a little longer. She and Borenson had stayed an hour, acting as common guards.

Now she knew.

In Heredon, Myrrima had slain the Darkling Glory, killed its body. But the elemental wind at its heart could not be destroyed so easily. She had been afraid that it would seek retribution.

Now she heard its vengeful screams as it raced over the grass. Now she felt its rage approach as if it were hidden in the dark thunderhead.

The three riders raced toward her.

All three warriors rode swift force horses. All three were knights of Mystarria, armored and bearing white lances.

Myrrima drew an arrow from her quiver, checked the bodkin. It was heavy steel with a narrow point, meant for piercing armor.

She spat into her palm, then slicked the shaft and quills of the arrow.

Her heart pounded. The riders thundered near, the wind at their backs. The storm raging behind lifted an ancient oak from its roots, tore the grass from the ground, made tiny spears out of pieces of straw, sent grit flying toward her. Sparrows fluttered desperately, trying to escape it.

She squinted into the howling fury and dropped to her knees as the riders advanced. They charged. She judged that they would not pass more than a yard to her left.

She would get one shot. She drew the great steel bow to its fullest, calmed herself, steadied her aim.

“I'm the one who killed you!” Myrrima shouted to the
Darkling Glory. “I'm the one you should want!”

One knight roared a battle cry, and dropped his lance so that it aimed for her heart. Ball lightning played around its iron tip.

She heard Borenson scream in fury. He raced toward her, warhammer in hand. The wind pounded her like fists.

Myrrima held her aim until the rider was thirty yards off. She loosed her shaft.

Borenson came flying as if to tackle the force horse. He hit the lance's tip with his warhammer, so that it dropped into the dirt. The lance struck the soil and cracked with a sound like a tree snapping in a storm. Lightning blasted out from it in a blinding flash, arced along the ground.

Borenson flipped in the air, smoke curling up from his boots, emitted a cry, and thudded to the dirt.

She glanced up. Her arrow plunged through the knight's neck. The force of the shaft was so great that it pierced the man's spine, nearly taking his head off.

The knight's head flapped back, neck broken, blood spurting from the gaping wound. Yet he continued to sit upright on the galloping charger for a moment, his dead hands clutching its reins.

The other two warriors charged past Myrrima, and then the dust storm hit, blinding her in its frenzy.

The elemental swept toward Gaborn like a storm from a nightmare. The front narrowed to less than a quarter of a mile wide, but rose up hundreds of feet. Dust whisked along the ground, and suddenly lightning flashed overhead.

“Take cover!” Gaborn shouted, pushing Iome behind him.

Guards, men he'd picked for this very moment, scurried to block the riders.

Langley charged up from the left, Skalbairn on his right. Both men were phenomenal warriors. Neither could have been prepared for this.

Gaborn raised his own shield: squinted over it as dirt and straw hurtled toward him.

To his left there was a wrenching of wood and metal as the storm hit his supply wagons, sent them rolling.

He clenched his warhammer.

Skalbairn dove toward one of the charging knights, screaming a war cry, his enormous battle-ax in hand.

The charging knight held his lance in his right fist, so that Skalbairn attacked from his unprotected flank.

Yet Skalbairn did not swing at the knight, as Gaborn would have. Instead he aimed at the horse, taking off its right leg at the knee.

The mount collapsed, and the rider fell with it. Lightning split from his lance, sizzled to the right, and slammed into Baron Handy of Heredon. The bolt cleaved the man in two. Charred flesh flew from him.

Skalbairn rushed to the fallen warrior, stood above him with battle-ax raised high overhead.

Both men were swallowed in the onrushing wall of dust.

Feykaald watched the wind slam into wagons, send them tumbling. Bits of wooden wheel spokes popped loose while axles screamed from the abuse.

Boxes of goods went rolling away, but the forcibles were not among them.

He pulled up the bottom of his gray burnoose, ran into the wind. Wet leaves struck him in the face. He put his arm up to shelter him from oncoming debris. He had faced desert storms this fierce many times.

For long years he had feigned deafness, weakness. Yet he had some endowments of brawn and stamina to match his hearing, and he put those to use now.

Each box held four thousand forcibles, with a combined weight of five or six hundred pounds. He had packed the boxes himself, knew the contents of each. He'd put the forcibles in canvas bags, so that they could easily be loaded onto a horse.

He lashed his horse to the treasure wagon, leapt onto it, drew his dagger and slashed the bindings that held the canvas cover. It floated off in the wind as if it had taken wing. He quickly pried the lid off one box, set it in the wagonbed. He found the two canvas sacks inside. They were lashed together with a rope.

Lifting five hundred pounds was difficult, even with two endowments of brawn. Grunting and straining, he hefted the bags and managed to sling them over the pommel of his saddle. Later, when he had time, he would lash them properly.

The wind screamed around him like a living thing.

Knowing full well that his likelihood of escape increased dramatically so long as Gaborn did not know of the theft, Feykaald grabbed the lid of the box, shoved it back into place.

But now the storm was upon him, making it almost too dark to see.

He leapt on his mount, turned its back into the wind, and raced off under cover of the gale.

One lone rider thundered toward Gaborn, the rising storm cloud black at his back.

Gaborn recognized Beckhurst by the colors on his shield. He gaped at the man in confusion. Beckhurst had always seemed loyal to House Orden. Sir Langley rushed to cut Beckhurst off.

Gaborn could hear Binnesman shouting or chanting as he struggled to get to Gaborn's side, but the old wizard had no endowments of his own, and he traveled too slowly.

Gaborn lowered his shield. He felt with his Earth senses. Danger centered on Iome.

Langley ran in front of Beckhurst's charger, roaring in fury. He swung his warhammer toward the charger's legs, as Skalbairn had done.

But Beckhurst rode a mighty warhorse, replete with endowments and well trained for battle.

It leapt over Langley and cleared him as effortlessly as if he were a rail fence. Indeed, to Gaborn's eye for that moment, it almost seemed that the charger flew.