Angus Wells - The God Wars 01 (42 page)

 
          
"A
mage called Anomius," said Octofan. "Neither Cenophus or Philomen
will risk his magic. You were lucky you didn't face him when Sathoman's
cutthroats attacked you."

 
          
"Indeed,"
the Kern murmured.

 
          
"And
Sathoman's stronghold is nearby?" inquired Calandryll.

 
          
"To
the north," Octofan said, "Though he spreads his net wide, across all
the Fayne."

 
          
"Hopefully
we'll not encounter him," said Calandryll, remembering to add,
"again."

 
          
"Few
survive an encounter with Sathoman, with or without Anomius," Octofan
offered dourly. "You'll not likely escape a second time."

 
          
"Is
he likely to be on the road?" Bracht asked.

 
          
Octofan
shrugged, pushing his emptied plate away. Pilar rose and began to collect the
dishes.

 
          
"Who
knows where Sathoman will be? Perhaps you'll meet him, perhaps not. Best pray
to Burash you don't."

 
          
He
rose to fetch a pipe and a pouch of the narcotic tobacco to the table. Denphat
and Jedomus pushed their chairs back and left the room. Calandryll saw that
both took a bow. He shook his head as Octofan offered a pipe; Bracht did the
same.

 
          
"Why
does the Tyrant not send his own wizards to aid the lictors?" asked the
Kem.

 
          
Octofan
sucked smoke, holding his breath a moment before releasing it in a sweet, blue
cloud and saying, "Most fled Iodrydus's edicts, and those who remain the
Tyrant prefers to keep close. Some few ward the larger towns, but he'd need an
army of sorcerers to dig Sathoman out of Fayne Keep—I suppose that so long as
the lictors collect his taxes he sees no advantage in it."

 
          
"And
so folk like us suffer," Pilar said from where she scrubbed dishes.
"Cenophus collects taxes; Sathoman collects what he wants. At least he
leaves us enough to live on. Just."

 
          
"Is
it not the way?" asked Octofan, his voice slightly slurred. "The
farmers always suffer."

 
          
"It's
different in Lysse," Calandryll offered.

 
          
"You
live in walled cities."

 
          
It
sounded like an accusation and Calandryll could think of no suitable response:
he shrugged. Octofan slumped in his chair, drawing deep on the pipe, filling
the room with its smoke. Pilar finished her cleaning and rook a chair at his
side, filling a pipe of her own. Bracht helped himself to more ale. Calandryll
yawned, pleasantly full and growing drowsy. In a while the door opened md
Denphat and Jedomus came in. They set their bows down and helped themselves to
their father's tobacco. Outside the moon painted the yard with silver light.
The red dog scratched on the porch and the pigs grunted. Somewhere a cow lowed;
a bull snorted. Finally Octofan set his pipe aside and rose loose-limbed to his
feet.

 
          
"You
can sleep in the barn. I'll see you provisioned in the morning."

 
          
"Thank
you." Calandryll was grateful for the dismissal: he wanted nothing more
than to sleep now. He lowed in the direction of the table: "My thanks for
a fine meal, Goodwife."

 
          
Pilar
nodded, smiling languidly, saying nothing. Bracht landed him his swordbelt and
Octofan took a lantern, ppening the door. The red dog stirred, growling, and
the tanner gestured it to silence, leading the way across the yard to the barn.
He lit them inside and left them there among the sweet scents of hay and horseflesh.
Moonlight entered from narrow windows cut high in the front wall, revealing the
straw mounded at the far end. They spread their blankets and stretched on the
makeshift bed: it was mightily comfortable after the hard ground of the Fayne.
He closed his eyes, but Bracht's soft voice denied him instantaneous sleep.

 
          
"So,
to the dangers of the Chaipaku and Azumandius we can add a brigand and a
renegade wizard."

 
          
"At
least," he replied, "sorcery's outlawed in Kandahar. That should
please you."

 
          
"Then
you'd best keep that red stone well hid," Bracht chuckled. "Lest we
add the Tyrant to our list."

 
          
"Aye,"
he mumbled, burrowing deeper into the straw.

 
          
He
was not sure at first what woke him, thinking that the sun rose and shone
into his eyes, then that someone held a lantern close to his face. Close enough
he could see the red glow of its flame through his shuttered lids and feel its
neat against his chest. He stirred, throwing a protesting arm across his face.
Surely it was not yet dawn—did Octofan come to wake him? He granted and opened
his eyes to darkness, the blue-velvet stillness of the earliest hours, yet lit
by a faint red glow. Not before his eyes, but below them. From his throat!
Where the red stone hung. He gasped, right hand scrabbling for his sword's hilt
even as he rolled from his blanket, his mind screaming 
Chaipakul

 
          
He
was on his feet, unsteady in the shifting straw, sword drawn, knees bent in the
fighter's crouch Bracht had taught him before he was fully awake. He saw the
aisle of the bam, the sleeping horses in their pens, the yard beyond the door
lit by a moon preparing to vacate the sky. He spun, stumbling in the straw, and
saw the Kem's dark form, filled for an instant with the awful dread that his
comrade was slain in his sleep, almost laughing with the relief Bracht's soft
snore brought. He turned full circle, his wary eyes finding nothing amiss, no
sign of imminent danger. No black-robed figure prepared to attack, nor lictor's
soldiers. A horse broke wind; out in the night an owl hooted.

 
          
He
blinked, racing mind calming, and touched his left hand to the stone. It was
warm to the touch, and when he drew it from beneath his shirt its glow was
fiery. He let it drop, Varent's words loud in the ears of his mind:
Should
you encounter some glamour, the flame within will burn bright and the stone
grow hot. Should that happen, you will know that wizardry is close.

 
          
He
sniffed, but smelled only horses and hay: no scent of almonds. He took a step
to the side, a step closer to Bracht, and kicked the sleeping Kem ungently.
Bracht's steady breathing faltered, then quickened. He moved suddenly off the
blanket, the falchion glittering in the waning moonlight as it slid from the
sheath, rising defensively as the freesword came to his feet. He stared about,
caught Calandryll's wide-eyed gaze, and frowned a question.

 
          
"Magic,"
Calandryll said, slow and soft, "There's magic abroad."

 
          
He
touched the stone again and Bracht nodded as he saw its glow.

 
          
"Where?
I see nothing."

 
          
Calandryll
shook his head.

 
          
"I
don't know. But the stone ..."

 
          
"Aye."

 
          
Bracht
moved off the piled straw onto the firmer ground between the pens. His blue
eyes darted over the horses; returned to Calandryll, then up to where the loft
lung heavy with baled hay.

 
          
"There.
By Ahrd, what is it?"

 
          
His
voice was hushed. Calandryll looked to where the falchion's tip pointed, and
gasped.

 
          
In
the darkest corner of the barn, farthest from the door, where the moonlight that
filtered through the openings in the wall could not reach, something hung glowing.
It was like the witch fire he had seen dancing on the masts of ships before a
storm, silver as a polished blade, but not flickering: solid; unmoving. It was
shaped like man and bird conjoined, its form growing clearer as his eyes
adjusted to the gloom. It sat—or perched, he was not sure which—on the edge of
the loft. Prehensile toes gripped the edge of the platform, bent knees
concealing the body, which hunched forward as though strained by the bulbous
head. Ethereal wings were folded behind, framing that strange skull—if the
thing had such corporal substance as bone beneath its shimmering hide— which
seemed all eyes, huge and round and impenetrably black. There was no indication
of a nose, but below the lominant orbs he saw a slitted mouth, and on either side
of the head, great fan-shaped ears.

 
          
He
gaped. The thing stared back. Then, sudden and silent, it rose, launching
itself from the loft.

 
          
The
wings spread like silver sails, curved and angled, more bat's than bird's; the
legs stretched behind in facsimile of a tail and he saw vestigial arms folded
across the narrow chest. It swooped toward him and he ducked, raising the
straightsword as does a man swatting at a fly. The creature darted effortlessly
clear, its blank eyes never leaving his face, rising to swoop again, this time
over iracht's head.

 
          
The
Kern swung the falchion viciously and again the weird creature avoided the
blow. Calandryll thought he heard a whistle, almost beyond the range of human
hearing, trill from the lipless mouth. Then the wings beat and it sped for the
door, through into the night beyond. He saw Bracht spin round, running after,
and followed, in time to see the thing climbing into the sky above the sleeping
farmhouse, lost against the panoply of stars.

 
          
He
looked at the talisman: it glowed no longer.

 
          
"It's
gone," he said, hearing his voice shake.

 
          
"What
was it?" Bracht lowered the falchion. "Have you seen its like?"

 
          
Calandryll
shook his head. "Not seen, but I've read of such beings. They are called
quyvhal
—sorcerous
creatures used as spies by wizards."

 
          
From
the porch the red dog growled a warning. Bracht stared at the sky, then turned
back into the bam. "I think," he said, "that perhaps Azumandias
has found us. Or the one called Anomius."

 
          
"Sathoman's
wizard?" Calandryll frowned. "Why should he seek us? How could he
know we are here?"

 
          
"This
journey of ours raises more questions than I can answer," Bracht shrugged.
"Perhaps the mage sensed our presence. Or perhaps ne looks for us for
reasons of his own. Perhaps he allies himself with Azumandias. Or Varent, for
all I know."

 
          
"Should
we flee?"

 
          
"I
think not." Bracht shook his head. "If whoever sent that thing could
find us here, he—or she, perhaps?—can find us again. We need those provisions
Octofan promised, so we'd do as well to wait for the dawn."

 
          
Calandryll
glanced at the sky. After the appearance of that strange creature dawn felt a
long way off. "At least it didn't attack us," he said.

 
          
"No,"
Bracht agreed, "but why did it spy on us? We ride watchful from now
on."

 
          
"Perhaps
Octofan can shed some light on it," Calandryll suggested.

 
          
"Perhaps
Octofan told it of us," said Bracht. "And if he knew of the sender he
may be an enemy. I think we'd best keep silent."

 
          
Calandryll
nodded and stretched on the straw, all thought of sleep forgotten. It seemed
they must regard all they encountered with suspicion, every Kand a potential
enemy: it was an oppressive thought. He was glad when the velvety darkness
opalesced into the misty grey of dawn, and gladder still when the sun broke
through and he heard the strident crowing of a cock announce the commencement
of the day.

 
          
Pilar
appeared, nodding a brief greeting as she began to collect eggs, and then
Octofan, stretching and yawning, Denphat and Jedomus at his back. They, in
turn, greeted
 
the two wayfarers before
going about their farmyard tasks, none seeming suspicious as Bracht and
Calandryll availed themselves of the washhouse and prepared their horses for
departure, seeing the two sons ride out to tend the cattle as Pilar called them
to a substantial breakfast and her husband presented them with provisions
sufficient to cam' them through to Kesham-vaj: dried meat and a sack of
vegetables, flour and salt, a little sugar.