Wizardborn, page 23
He did not need to fear.
Nor did he need to count his dead. He’d felt the deaths in battle: twenty-four men. Twenty-four men had fallen, and with each death, he felt as if the man were being extracted from his own flesh.
He’d tried to warn them, tried to call to them in the battle. He sought to serve the Earth in that way, and he hoped that the Earth would restore his Powers.
But he’d been unable to reach them. He’d sensed their danger, shouted his warnings, but it was like shouting at deaf men.
Iome and Myrrima held back, stayed with Hoswell for a moment. Gaborn felt eager to begin searching among the dead, hoping to find the Waymaker. His Days rode at his side.
A frowth giant roared, off to his right. Gaborn glanced at the beast. It pointed at the fleeing reavers, roared again. There was a question in its voice. It wanted to know why Gaborn was letting the reavers get away.
“The battle was a glorious victory,” the Days said. “It will be noted as such.” Gaborn had seldom heard a word of praise from the historian.
In his memory, Gaborn rehearsed what he’d done. He’d ridden the reavers’ flank, sensing with his Earth Powers, until he felt the moment for the charge was perfect. Now, he could see that more than two thousand reavers lay dead. The lives of so few men were a small price to pay for such a victory.
His Days was right. It was a great conquest.
Out on the battlefield, a few warriors were wounded. He saw them limping about, bandaging themselves as best they could. Binnesman went to his wylde as she broke open the skull of a scarlet sorceress and began to feed.
Binnesman had allowed the creature to enter battle. Once the charge began, she’d leapt from her horse and run to the center of the fray, attacking the monsters bare-handed with a ferocity that was hard to credit. Gaborn had not even numbered her kills.
Now lords sat down and began to clean and sharpen their weapons. A few scouts began making a count of their fallen foes.
Gaborn could not order a second charge immediately. He didn’t have the lances for it.
When he dared consider the very notion of charging, he felt uneasy. There was a change among the reavers. He did not yet fathom it, but he knew that he would never be able to charge them so successfully again.
Binnesman began tending the wounded. Iome and Baron Waggit went with him.
Gaborn told Averan, “Come with me. Let’s see if we can find the Waymaker.”
With that, he climbed down from his mount, helped the child from hers. He’d promised Averan that she would not have to eat the reaver’s brains in public. So when other lords and counselors sought to follow, he waved them back.
They began to walk together through the reavers, down among the furrow. Walking into it was like stepping down into a grave. The smell of beaten soil was all around. The hulking reavers lay dead and bleeding, cutting off the light. Gree wriggled in the air above them, lit on the corpses. The small black creatures scurried about like bats, with the claws at the tips of their wings hooked into the reavers’ hides. But aside from the wings, that’s where the similarity to bats ended. The gree, like reavers, had four small legs in addition to their wings, and their eyeless heads had tiny philia of their own. The gree scampered about over the carcasses and scaled the dirty creases of flesh to search for shelter and to feed on the parasitic skin worms that had plagued the reavers in life.
Each time Gaborn neared a dead reaver, the gree would make small squeaking noises and crawl away, or take flight.
Averan strolled along, searching the reavers slowly. Her freckled face was pinched, her pale blue eyes alert. She stopped and looked at a blade-bearer for a long time, squinting and leaning her head to the side, as if she were inspecting an apple in the marketplace.
It was a ghastly enterprise.
“This one has thirty-six philia,” Averan said. “And he’s large enough. But his paws are too small, kind of delicate.”
Gaborn felt eager for any additional information he could gather on reavers. “Does the number of philia mean anything?”
“More philia means that a reaver might smell things better, and hear better,” Averan said. “But that’s not always true.”
“Do you know who the new leader of the horde will be?”
Averan thought about it. “I’m not sure who is alive still.”
Gaborn accepted that. “But they won’t return to Carris?”
“No,” Averan said. “I don’t think so. You held your ground, and the reavers worry when humans hold their ground.”
“Why would they worry about us?”
“Because we defeated them in the past,” Averan said. “Erden Geboren fought with the Glories beside him. To the reavers, they shone like the sun. They blinded the reavers.”
Two thousand years ago, Erden Geboren had fought the reavers, and nearly been destroyed by them. In the old songs, it had seemed to Gaborn that he fought overwhelming odds. He found it fascinating that the reavers would recall their own account of that battle, and still fear a pair of Glories.
“Why didn’t the reavers harvest one another at Carris?” Gaborn asked. “I saw the dead. None were harvested.”
“Because,” Averan said as if she were lecturing a child, “the spoils go to the most powerful reaver lords. The dead belonged to Battle Weaver. They were hers to divide. But you killed her, and with the lightning and all of the confusion in the retreat, the lesser mages didn’t dare to harvest. They were probably afraid that the Glories were returning. At the very least, they were afraid of getting punished.”
Gaborn understood. Even among men, when dividing the spoils of war, the captains and sergeants would normally get first pick of the bounty.
Averan stopped at another reaver, squinted at it for a long time. They’d gone through nearly a third of the fallen.
“This could be him,” she said at last. “I can’t be sure.” She went around to the monster’s anus, sniffed at it, and staggered backward, wrinkling her nose.
“Is this the one?” Gaborn asked.
Averan shook her head. “I can’t be sure. I can’t smell him well enough to know.”
“But you smelled something?”
“Just his death scream. When reavers die, they warn others away. Otherwise, I can’t smell them at all.”
Gaborn went to the hole above the anus of the monster. The philia there were wet and sticky, more like sweaty glands than the philia that graced a reaver’s head. He could smell something there, certainly. Though Averan described it as a “scream,” the scent seemed mild, like moldy garlic.
“What does the scent mean?” Gaborn asked. If he was to go into the Underworld, he needed to learn to translate the reavers’ language of scents.
“It means ‘Death is here. Run away,’” Averan said, translating as best she could.
Averan sighed, looked down at the endless string of reavers stretched out for more than a mile ahead. “Let’s mark this one. If I don’t find one that I feel better about, we’ll try him.” Averan acted shy, self-conscious about eating the thing in public. It was, after all, a highly unnatural act.
“All right,” Gaborn said. He glanced about, thinking to stack some rocks in front of the beast, but the dark soil here in the furrow had been trampled by tens of thousands of reavers, and seemed nearly as hard as stone. At last he took off his right gauntlet and laid it in the reaver’s gaping mouth.
He and Averan trundled on. A knight came riding up through the furrow, weaving among the monsters. Gaborn could hear the jangle of his ring mail and the pounding horses’ hooves before the man rounded a carcass. It was Skalbairn.
“Good news, milord,” he said. “We’ve counted nearly thirty-three hundred dead reavers in this one charge alone.”
Gaborn could hardly credit such numbers. He had fewer than twenty-five hundred knights in his retinue, and had lost only one in a hundred men.
He must have been beaming. After Skalbairn left, Averan looked up at him. “You look like the cat that ate the bird.”
“It’s a good day,” Gaborn said. “It’s a great victory.”
Averan shook her little head. “You mustn’t think that, milord. Most of these reavers were innocent. Most of them were … like peasants.” She had a challenge in her tone.
“You talk about them as if they were people,” Gaborn said. “But these ‘peasants’ marched on Carris. They killed tens of thousands of people, and would have killed them all.”
“They only did it because their master told them,” Averan argued. “It’s not the little reavers you have to kill—it’s the One True Master. She’s your enemy.”
The child spoke with such conviction. He noted her appearance. This morning he would have thought her a normal child, a girl of nine with red hair and freckles and a determined gleam in her eye.
Now he saw that it was an illusion. Looking closely, he could detect the faintest green hue to her face, like bits of greenish mica that caught and reflected the sunlight.
She doesn’t look like a common child, he decided. There’s more of Binnesman to her than I’d have first thought. And like the Earth Warden who serves as her master, she seems to care as much about the health of snakes as she does about mice, reavers as much as men.
Averan neared another reaver. The garlicky scent was strong about this one, and Averan almost staggered away. “That one is rank,” she said. “He must have died slowly.”
Gaborn didn’t doubt that she was right.
“Do you think you could learn to talk to the reavers?” Gaborn asked.
“How? In case you didn’t notice,” Averan said, “I don’t have any philia.”
“But if you could mix smells,” Gaborn said. “For example, if you took garlic, couldn’t you approximate the words?”
Averan looked up at him, stunned. “I never thought of that!” She frowned. “No, I don’t think so. Garlic isn’t right. The death warning isn’t really very much like garlic. It would be like yelling ‘breath’ when you meant ‘death.’” Yet he’d planted a seed in her mind. “Maybe, though, I might be able to write a few words,” she mused.
Gaborn let his imagination soar. To be able to speak to the reavers! What would I say to them? But he had no idea. He didn’t know their language, couldn’t think how he might communicate with them.
Averan had him mark two more reavers as they went, until at length they reached the end of the line.
Then she turned back to the first reaver that they had marked.
Gaborn took his sword and crawled up into the reaver’s mouth. Its teeth hung overhead like green icicles. He thrust his blade into the monster’s soft palate and sliced. The inky blood of the reaver drained from the wound, and rained in clotted clumps at his feet.
He stood for a long time, letting the blood flow, before he reached up and actually pulled out his prize—a huge handful of steaming reaver brains, like gray worms bathed in the reaver’s dark blood.
He gave the brains to Averan, and turned his back as she fed. She chewed quietly, making appreciative sounds.
He climbed up on a reaver, looked to the south. He could see no sign of the horde at the moment. The last of them had climbed the hills toward Mangan’s Rock, two miles to the south. Now they were in a depression. Only a haze in that direction let him know that the reavers still fled.
It had been a glorious battle, a stunning victory. Yet he watched as knights picked up their fallen comrades and carried them to the wains. The dead and wounded were laid in the same boxes that had been used to haul the lances from Carris. It was an economical use, Gaborn supposed, and the dead would not mind that they were carted about without ceremony. Still, it seemed an unfitting end to the battle, an indecorous end to a human life.
A contingent of lords saw him, came riding along the field. Their faces were shining, expectant. Many of them were mighty warriors: Queen Herin the Red of Fleeds, High Marshal Skalbairn of the Knights Equitable, Sir Langley of Orwynne.
Skalbairn shouted, “We’re ready to go when you are. I had lances transported from Carris and Castle Fells last night down to Ballyton, not twenty miles down the road. In half an hour, we can rearm and make another pass.”
Gaborn considered it, and the Earth’s warning came almost as a wail. If he dared attempt a second charge, the reavers would devastate his troops.
“We’ll re-arm, and take lunch in Ballyton,” Gaborn said, stalling for time to come up with another plan. He could see by their faces that they’d hoped for instant battle. “The reavers are forewarned. We won’t take them unprepared next time.”
The look of consternation on Langley was impossible to miss. But Skalbairn said simply, “As my lord commands.”
Gaborn climbed off his gruesome perch.
Averan had just finished her meal. She knelt down and wiped her fingers in the dirt.
He asked, “Did we get the right one—the Waymaker?”
Averan merely shrugged. “I don’t know yet. It takes a while”
“How long is a while?”
Averan thought. “About three or four hours.”
At that moment, horns began to blow over the horizon. Gaborn raced out of the gully, up onto the edge of the plains, as riders came over the hill to the south.
One of them was shouting. “The reavers are climbing Mangan’s Rock! We’ve run them to ground.”
29
THE RETREAT
King Orden once asked me which I esteemed most in a knight: courage or obedience. I told him that the answer was obvious: obedience. A dutiful knight will be courageous on command.
—King Jas Laren Sylvarresta
Myrrima stood quietly in the dry grass and drew an arrow to her ear. The dyed goose pinions lightly grazed her cheek.
She faced a dead reaver at eighty yards, took aim at its sweet triangle.
“I’m going to Inkarra with you,” she told Borenson. She waited for him to respond, but he said nothing. The many times that she’d rehearsed this, she’d always imagined that he would rebuff her immediately. She held her aim, let out a sigh.
Most of the lords had ridden off, trailing the reavers that were taking refuge at Mangan’s Rock. Borenson answered, “I knew why you’d come the moment I saw you.”
“And?”
“I still think it unwise.”
A few days ago, he’d rejected her plea to accompany him out of hand. Something had changed in their relationship. She thought it a good sign.
Hoswell’s bow felt sweet beneath her palms. The polished wood at the bow’s belly fit as if it had been carved for her. The long arc of spring steel drew easily and gracefully to the full.
A yew bow usually had an uneven draw. Often a warp in the wood or perhaps a wing that was shaved too thin gave yew a catch here, a loose spot there. Thus it took time to learn the range an arrow might fly based upon how far the shaft was drawn. Even metal bows suffered this defect, if the smith hammered the metal roughly.
But Hoswell’s steel bow felt perfectly balanced.
She let her shaft fly. The arrow blurred, hit the corner of the reaver’s sweet triangle and was gone.
Her yew bow would not have penetrated nearly so far. She’d used three dozen arrows in the charge, and had only managed to bring down fourteen reavers. Hoswell had bested her by more than a dozen kills.
“So,” she said, “I’ve been thinking about it. And I agree that it wouldn’t be wise.”
Borenson gave a snort of amusement. “You agree?”
“Aye,” she said. “I’d be a fool to follow you to Inkarra. It’s much safer here with the Darkling Glories and reaver hordes and the invading armies.”
Borenson laughed a deep resounding belly laugh. She knew that she had him.
“All right,” he said. “You’ve got the mettle. Come with me.”
She gave him a sidelong look.
“But—” he said, “I don’t suggest this lightly. What do you know of Inkarra?”
“The people in the Night Kingdoms live in houses as big as a village,” Myrrima answered. “They sleep by day and work by night. Dragons guard their doors.”
“The rune mages of Inkarra protect the land,” he added. “Those foolish enough to enter do not come out. Their borders have been closed to men of Rofehavan for three centuries, and the Storm King has not answered a missive from Mystarria in twenty years.”
She drew an arrow from her quiver, swiftly pulled it full, and planted it in the reaver’s sweet triangle.
“Shall we go now?” Myrrima asked.
“You’d go without leave of the king?”
“I’m sworn to the Brotherhood of the Wolf,” Myrrima said. “I’ll serve mankind as I see fit—the same as a Knight Equitable.”
Borenson hesitated.
“What?” Myrrima asked. “You still don’t want me to come to Inkarra?”
“I’m torn. The reavers are going south, we’re going south,” Borenson said. “They make fair traveling companions, aside from their table manners.”
Myrrima grinned fiercely. She supposed that any creature that tried to eat you could justly be accused of having bad table manners.
So, he wanted to fight some more reavers. Myrrima glanced up at Mangan’s Rock. “This looks like a siege, though,” she said. “We could be here for weeks.”
“All right, then,” Borenson conceded. “We’ll leave for Inkarra.”
Myrrima couldn’t quite believe that he would take her without more argument. She’d known from the moment they met that he desired her as a woman. Now, she knew that she had earned his respect.
Only one thing remained. She would teach him devotion.
Mangan’s Rock towered above the plains, a lone sentinel. Its ragged gray cliffs rose three hundred feet at their highest point, and sloped on the southern face to only ninety feet.
Nearly a thousand years before, at the peak of the Dark Lady Wars, the lords of Rofehavan had carved a fortress at the summit of Mangan’s Rock, and had dug a road that wound along the cliff face.
But that was ages past. Various lords had undertaken the task of restoring the fortifications. But there was damned little water up on the rock and too little forage on the plains. In the long run, the cost of maintaining the fortress was too high.
