Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (28 page)

           
Chazali's face was blank, held firm
by rigid selfdiscipline alone. Calandryll sprang to his feet, Bracht and Katya
with him, all with swords drawn.

           
"They look to frighten
us." Ochen remained seated, hands extended toward the fire.

           
Bracht's mouth stretched in a sour
grin and he said, "They make a passable good attempt," and the wazir
nodded and said, "They're not close. Nor likely to break through the
cantrips I've set."

           
"Only
likely
?" asked the Kern.

           
"This place is ringed with
gramaryes they'll find mightily hard to defeat, but"—Ochen
shrugged—"I know not what magicks Rhythamun employs, what sorceries he's
put in them."

           
"Can you not seek them
out?" asked Calandryll, voice raised to be heard over the horrid
yammering.

           
"That would be unwise."
Ochen shook his head. "Do I venture into the aethyr, then my protections
here are weakened. And still there remains the danger that Rhythamun might
locate your pneuma again/'

           
Calandryll gestured helplessly at
the stygian darkness beyond the fires' glow. "His creatures would seem to
have found us," he declared. "Shall they not alert their
master?"

           
"In which case/' returned Ochen
patiently, "I had best remain close, no? And perhaps they've not such
communion with him—I think it likely he worked his filthy magicks on these
tensai and left them to their task."

           
"Then you can do nothing?"
Calandryll stared around. It seemed the shrieking pierced his ears, drove
hammer blows against his skull. He shook his head, suddenly aware that Cennaire
had risen and clutched his arm. "We must endure this?"

           
"I fear so," said Ochen
with a composure near to irritating.

           
Silence fell, hard and sudden,
deafening as the awful sounds. Ears remembered the shrieking, its cessation
ominous, like the lull preceding a storm, the quiet before attack. It seemed
then that the creaking of the timber, the rustle of wind-stirred leaves,
presaged some greater assault. The fires crackled; horses snickered; armor
rattled as men peered, waiting, anticipating, into the darkness.

           
"I'll check the animals,"
Bracht said. "This unnerves them."

           
"I'll accompany you."

           
Katya sheathed her saber. Calandryll
caught her eye and saw it troubled. He felt sweat run cold down his back,
Cennaire's hand tight on his arm.

           
"I'll speak with my men,"
said Chazali.

           
"Tell them my cantrips shall
give full warning of attack," said Ochen. "And that I think none
shall come."

           
The kiriwashen frowned. Calandryll
said, "Then why this?"

           
Ochen barked a single, humorless
laugh, and answered, "Were they ready to attack, think you they'd give us
such warning? No, they look to wear us down. The attack will come later—and
unannounced."

           
Chazali grunted and stalked away.
Calandryll set a hand over Cennaire's and forced a smile, his voice to calm.
"Ochen is likely right," he said. "So, do we prepare our
dinner?"

           
She answered with a wan twitching of
her lips, releasing her grip, though she had rather held him close. She knew
herself frightened in a manner she had not experienced since first she had been
cast into the dungeons of Nhur-jabal; and comforted in a manner she had never
known by his presence. She ducked her head and settled on the grass.

           
Calandryll sat beside her, studying
Ochen as he set a pot to boiling, fresh meat to cooking. "When?" he
asked softly.

           
"Their attack?" The wazir
shrugged. "I claim no ability to scry the future, only to guesses, but, by
day's light, I think. Rhythamun knows you've a sorcerer for company and so
he'll surely know I ward our camp with gramaryes each night. No less that I
cannot work such magic as we ride." He raised a hand as Calandryll frowned
a question, opened his mouth to voice it. "To maintain a cantrip about so
large a group, moving, is more than any save the wazir-narimasu might do; and
then difficult, needing more than a single mage. I suspect Rhythamun uses men
and magic, both, and so will have instructed his minions to attack us as we
ride."

           
It was scant comfort, and all
Calandryll could find by way of answer was a grunt, a weak smile.

           
He reached for the meat, spitting
fat where it hung over the flames, that distraction denied him by Cennaire, who
murmured, "Leave that to me. You've surely weightier concerns."

           
"Than this?" he asked,
wincing as the howling started up once more.

           
"Do you not learn of the
occult?" She looked to Ochen as she spoke, rearranging the strips of meat.

           
"There will be no instruction
this night," the wazir said, loud over the screaming. "In that,
Rhythamun wins the day."

           
"A small enough victory,"
Calandryll retorted, more for Cennaire's sake than any real conviction.

           
"Aye." Ochen smiled.
"And tomorrow . . . ? Perhaps he'll taste defeat."

           
"Dera willing."

           
Calandryll spoke sincerely, though
he wondered, as the dreadful cacophony climbed to fresh heights, if the Younger
Gods took no further hand in this strange war, but left its waging to men. They
sat among dense timber—but where was Ahrd? Could the tree god of Cuan na'For
not send his byahs to quell the howling, destroy the howlers? Water bubbled
from the spring—but where was Burash? Where was Dera? The goddess had spoken of
restrictions imposed on her and her godly kin—did the Kess Imbrun mark the
limit of their aegis? Were they, perhaps, without power in the Jesseryn Plain?
And Horul—what of the Jesserytes' equine god? He must surely side with the
questers, but he remained aloof, it seemed; or overwhelmed by the dreaming emanations
of Tharn.

           
Calandryll felt doubt grow with the
shrieking. He would have expressed it to Ochen, but conversation was entirely
impossible now, drowned under the shrilling that rose up to fill the forest,
the night, his mind, and all he could do was wonder, longing to press hands
against assaulted ears, but unwilling to seek that escape for fear he should
miss the warnings of attack, not entirely convinced by the wazir's reasoning.

           
It was a dismal night, wearying and
fraying nerves, so that when the sky at last paled into dawn's promise and the
howling ceased, they broke their fast in silence, saddled horses skittish with
fear, and rode grimly north, pushing the animals to the limits of their
strength, hoping to outdistance their unseen escorts.

           
At
noon
, they halted to rest and eat, grouped about
a stream, watering the horses. Bowmen stood in a wary circle around the
animals, others bringing food to their companions, that eaten standing, eyes
never still, but constantly scanning the minatory woods. The sun stood high and
hot, shafts of gold lancing down through the trees, the air heavy, filled with
the buzz of insects and the trilling of birds. Then sudden silence.

           
Bracht shouted, "Ware
attack!"

           
And bird song was replaced with the
susurration of arrows. ·

           
A horse screamed, a shaft protruding
from its flank. A man cursed, lengths of feathered wood jutting from his armor.
He snapped them, hurling them aside, peering round with upraised sword, finding
no ready target for his anger as the sentries loosed an answering volley at the
shapes that darted among the bosky shadows. Another horse shrilled, three
shafts embedded in its neck, blood starting from nostrils and mouth as it
plunged, lifting the man who held it off his feet, sending him stumbling, then went
down on its knees. Five more arrows struck it, and it rolled, kicking on its
side, its screaming horrible.

           
Then silence again, broken only by
the faltering gasps of the stricken horse. Bracht cursed, dragging his stallion
after him, the big black horse snorting, eyes rolling as it was hauled closer
to the wounded animal. The Kern slapped reins into the hand of the kotu-zen
whose mount it was and drove his falchion into the animal's neck, severing the
artery there, ending the beast's agony. Unspeaking, blue eyes filled with rage,
he snatched back his reins.

           
Bird song returned: the forest
regained a measure of normality, and Bracht said, "They're gone."

           
Katya, her voice grim, her eyes
stormy, said, "Until the next time."

           
Cennaire, standing shielded by Calandryll,
said softly, "I did not think it would be like this."

           
He stood with blade defensive,
smoked meat and hunk of bread forgotten at his feet. "Thought you it would
be easy?" Then, embarrassed that he turned his anger in her direction:
"Forgive me— Rhythamun's wiles shorten my temper."

           
She shook her head and smiled a
troubled smile. "I chose the way," she said. "You've no need to
apologize to me."

           
She hoped—a fresh concern—that no
arrow should strike her. She was confident the shafts afforded her no threat,
but that very absence must expose her. She hid her thoughts behind a shudder
that Calandryll took for fear.

           
"We survive," he said
gently. "Another victory."

           
She nodded, sunlight striking
blue-black sparks from her hair. Calandryll sheathed his blade, again wondering
at her courage, turning away as Chazali roared orders, angered by the attack,
and the column mounted, the horseless warrior finding a seat behind a comrade.

           
The road narrowed, running by the
foot of a low ridge, the slope grassy, treeless save for a scattering of pines,
the eastern trailside clustered thick with timber. The width allowed for no
more than three horses to move abreast and attention was focused mainly on the
forested side: it seemed more likely an attack should come from that direction.
Instead, it came from the ridge.

           
Had it been mortal, then likely the
mounted archers would have felled the ambushers and the riders been able to
gallop clear. It was not, however, mortal flesh that raced with unhuman speed
down the slope, but something other, perhaps once quickened by humanity, but
now imbued with Rhythamun's fell sortilege: changed.

           
It was impossible to define exactly
what rendered them other than human. Easier to see the arrows that sprouted,
ignored, from their chests. Easier to see them leap, yowling, at the horse
carrying the two kotu-zen. Calandryll gained an impression of elongated limbs,
of distorted bone that thrust out the jaws, those filled with fangs,- of red,
mad eyes, and nails grown into talons. He saw them spring outward and up, like
grey shadows in the sunlight, smashing the double-mounted men from the saddle,
the horse bucking, shrieking as a hand—a paw?—thrust out, almost casually, an
afterthought, to rip away the windpipe. The horse fell down, twitching, already
dead. The kotu-zen were carried away, each held tight by one of the creatures,
into the trees.

           
He heard them scream, the sound
contesting Chazali's bellowed commands, and looked to Ochen even as the
surviving warriors dismounted and took battle stations.

           
The wazir sprang from his horse with
an agility that belied his age, running for the trees after the captives.
Calandryll dismounted with the gelding still plunging terrified under him,
sword in hand, racing after the sorcerer. He was aware of Bracht and Katya to
either side, Ochen a little way ahead, raising a hand and shouting a warning as
they came up. There was the smell of almonds, and a burst of brilliant light,
silver and gold mingled, overwhelming the shafts of sunlight that pierced the woodland.
Ochen spoke, low and rapidly, the words strange, arcane, and the light expanded
to envelop the questers, cocooning them in its glow.

           
"Stay close," the wazir
warned, and reverted to the language of the occult.

           
Beams of gold-veined silver pulsed out,
fluid, like airborne water, winding swift among the trees, their piney perfume
replaced with the almond scent, the ethereal streamers shimmering, questing
deeper and deeper into the forest. Screams then, such as they all had heard
that last night, but brief now, abruptly dying.