Brotherhood of the Wolf (40 page)

She reached the stand of pines. Just within their shelter, Celinor had brought his mount to a halt. Ahead, a huge logjam blocked the channel where once the stream had flooded.

“Hide!” Gaborn's voice shouted in her mind.

Erin leapt toward Celinor, and the wind half-carried her to him.

She knocked him from his mount and rolled forward, ducking beneath a fallen tree, beneath the logjam.

Behind her, she heard horses whinny in terror, but dared not spare a glance backward.

Instead, she crawled under the pile of logs as the wind howled and thundered. Trees snapped and branches crackled. A tree toppled and crashed into the woodpile above her as if the Darkling Glory meant to crush them all. Its branches shielded her as darkness descended, enveloping her with the smell of pitch and evergreen.

All around their little shelter, the storm raged. Even here, even beneath the fallen trees, the wind ripped bark from ancient logs and sent stones rolling ponderously along the riverbed.

Celinor put his arms around Erin, clutched her, trying to protect her with his body. In the utter darkness, she felt he was smothering her. Yet she feared to let him go.

“Stay down!” he cried.

Now she understood why Gaborn had warned them. The power of the Darkling Glory seemed immense. No arrow could have pierced that roiling storm. No rider, no matter
how courageous or proficient, could have borne down upon the beast with lance.

She could not fight it, did not know if she could even hide from it.

Lightning cracked overhead, and the dry logs above exploded like dry tinder.

In the blinding flash, she glimpsed something. Beyond the trunk of the fallen pine, between its intact branches, she saw a shimmering form. The shape of a winged man hunched low. He moved along the streambed, stalking toward them. Dark flames flickered around him, as if he simultaneously both created and devoured fire.

Erin felt the air thrill. Her hair stood on end as static electricity wreathed her. She feared that another lightning bolt would pierce her now.

As the Darkling Glory overtook them, the wind suddenly died. In the utter blackness, Erin dared not move. She was at the heart of the storm.

Above her, the dried trees and brush that shielded her roared into flame, ignited by the lightning. The Darkling Glory leapt into the air, fanned the flames with its wings.

The beast let out an unearthly howl of delight, a sound that was at once both more pain-wracked and more beautiful than any sound she'd ever heard, an aria of the damned.

Smoke billowed around her, choking her. Bits of twigs and broken bark scattered blazing through the logjam, dropping all around. A log dropped from above, thwacking Celinor on the back. A hot ember landed on Erin's hand.

She swatted it away, and the fire touched dry grasses nearby. From their wan light, Erin saw an embankment to her left. The stream had cut away some dirt, creating an overhang, and she imagined that if she could make it to the undercut, the ground above might help shield her from the inferno.

She grabbed Celinor and motioned for him to go to the left, but realized with a start that he was unconscious. He'd tried to protect her with his body, but the falling log had
hit him harder than she'd known. He was unconscious, if not dead.

She rolled from beneath him, grabbed the collar of his ring mail, and began laboriously dragging him out from underneath the burning wood, inching toward safety.

A hot branch fell from above, hit Celinor full on the back with a thud. He screamed in agony and looked up, his face streaming sweat and blood, then passed out again.

She kept fighting, made it halfway through the logjam, climbing over one log and under another, when suddenly she realized that the wind had stopped. Full daylight shone through the inferno.

She looked up, daring to hope, unsure if even she alone could now escape from beneath the tangle of burning logs before they collapsed under their own weight.

But the Darkling Glory had left.

Dully, she realized that Celinor's cry might have saved them. The Darkling Glory must have thought him dead. She flipped Celinor onto his back, wondering if the Darkling Glory was right.

23
BRAVE LORDS

Gaborn could only look up in dull wonder as the Darkling Glory drew the light from the sky, focused it into a funnel of fire that swirled down into a ball of blackest night.

Gaborn felt wearier than he'd ever been, could hardly focus his eyes, much less his thoughts. Without having slept for days, and with the sudden loss of his endowments, he could barely hold up his head.

As the beast approached, the wind of its passage whipped and howled. It flew low over the dirt highway, just as an
owl will sweep along a winter's road in the moonlight, hunting mice.

The wind of its passage uprooted trees, hurled great stones. Half a mile ahead, men and horses scattered from its path, but not fast enough, seldom fast enough.

Lightning crackled from the cloud, firing like ballista bolts, blasting men in half, gutting horses.

Thunder snarled through the afternoon air, mingling with death cries and the sounds of snapping trees.

As the tempest thrashed the road, dust swirled into the mix, obscuring everything.

“To me,” cried fat King Orwynne at Gaborn's side. “For Orwynne and Mystarria!”

The old fool thinks to protect me! Gaborn realized. I've lost my endowments, and Orwynne thinks me a commoner.

I've underestimated the speed of the Darkling Glory, Gaborn thought. I have to get my people to move faster.

He was riding at the van of his army, with his knights scattered miles behind. He sent a warning to his Chosen warriors: “Hide! Don't dare fight!”

But his warning did not deter King Theovald Orwynne. The fat king dropped his lance into a couched position, the haft of the lance resting in the crook of his arm, and spurred his mount forward, charging that swirling orb of blackness and storm.

His eldest son, Barnell, was only sixteen years old, but he was a fighter. He bravely drew his warhammer, and charged on his father's right, while King Orwynne's most trusted guardsman, Sir Draecon, hurtled forward at his left.

A hundred knights surged to cover Orwynne's attack. Some began hurling lances into the maelstrom, while archers shot wildly into the black orb, sending up shaft after shaft, creating a steady hail of arrows.

The archers availed nothing. Spears and arrows veered in the whirling magical winds controlled by the Darkling Glory, thrown wildly from their course. In moments, arrows hurtled back toward the attackers.

So men fought to protect their king, but only King Orwynne,
his son Barnell, and Sir Draecon proved brave enough to charge that darkness.

Behind Gaborn, someone shouted, “Milord—this way!” Someone raced up and grabbed the reins of Gaborn's horse.

Gaborn was so bone weary—so weak from his loss of endowments and lack of sleep—that he could not think what to do. He let himself be blindly led. Without his endowments of stamina, he felt more enervated than he'd ever been. Without his brawn, he could hardly hold himself upright in the saddle. Without his endowment of wit, he could no longer think straight, could not recall the names of most of those he'd Chosen in the past week, men whose faces flashed before his eyes as he sensed their danger.

So he felt debilitated both in mind and body.

Gaborn's Days raced at his side. Through a seeming haze, Gaborn now recognized the young knight who led his horse—Sir Langley, Orwynne's champion. He was grateful to see that the best of Orwynne's men were bright enough not to follow him to their deaths.

The mounts raced from the storm toward a stand of alder, gray-white trunks rising splendidly among golden autumn leaves.

Gaborn glanced back. King Orwynne and his men bore down, their swift force horses gaining speed, the mounts' braided manes whipping in the wind.

A sudden hope arose in Gaborn, a hope that they might succeed in their charge, even as the earth powers in him warned that they could not.

Lightning forked from that dark orb.

One tong slammed into Sir Draecon on Orwynne's left, while the other blew a ragged hole through young Barnell on the right.

Only King Orwynne was left, roaring a battle cry as he urged his armored mount to charge into that churning orb of obscurity.

Just when it looked as if Theovald Orwynne's mount might penetrate that darkness, an irresistible wind struck the horse, lifting it and fat King Orwynne into the air.

Suddenly Orwynne twisted horribly, like a rag being wrung by a washwoman.

King Orwynne had several endowments of voice, and the agony in his death shriek was astonishing in volume. It promised to be the thing of nightmares for weeks to come.

The King's armor crumpled with his bones. Blood poured from the twisted wreckage. The stomach cavity of his charger burst like a melon, spilling innards, and then the whole grisly spectacle—king and mount—went hurling high into the air, as if tossed up in celebration.

“The Bright Ones protect us!” Sir Langley exclaimed at Gaborn's side.

Gaborn's and Sir Langley's chargers finished climbing up a small knoll into the alders. The horses snorted and huffed in terror. Gaborn stared back wearily as King Orwynne and his charger dropped a quarter of a mile from the top of their arc. Gaborn felt fatigued in heart and mind.

He could go no farther. I'm not tired just from lack of endowments, he realized. I'm mentally exhausted.

Being tied by his earth powers to hundreds of thousands of people, being cognizant of their danger, sending warnings to each of his Chosen when he recognized a threat—it was more than he could bear.

But despite his inordinate fatigue, he felt terrified to sleep. He feared that if he slept, he would not be able to use his powers, could not warn his Chosen.

Weakly he sent a warning to all of his Chosen. “Hide!”

From this vantage he could see the road behind for nearly two miles back. He gazed down the road, watched his men scatter, split off the road and race into the woods.

The Darkling Glory roared in frustration, veered across the valley to the nearest visible target, a knight who had fallen from his horse. The orb of darkness swooped, and this time no lightning bolts flashed out, no claws of air ripped him to shreds.

Instead, the dark orb settled over the poor fellow, and Gaborn was left to imagine from the fellow's prolonged death shrieks what kind of horrible fate he'd met.

Then the swirling wind and debris and blackness began to rise, veered ever so slightly toward him.

“Come,” Sir Langley said. He took Gaborn's reins, and urged his mount forward; they raced under the trees, leaping a windfall, galloping down a long slope.

“If you have the power to save us,” Langley said lightly, “now would be a good time to use it.”

Gaborn felt inside himself, wondering. Yes, the danger was still strong.

“Go left!” Gaborn warned, ordering Langley to head into sparse cover. To the left, most of the golden leaves of the alders had fallen. They lay in deep piles on the forest floor. Logically, riding into the open seemed wrong.

The Darkling Glory came, a roaring wind that whipped low through the woods, racing after them just above the treetops.

It dove toward them, and the golden leaves on the forest floor began swirling, swirling everywhere in a blinding maelstrom. The wind shrieked.

Lightning flashed, blasted a tree beside Gaborn.

“Left,” Gaborn shouted.

Sir Langley and Gaborn's Days veered, racing to beat the wind.

Suddenly Gaborn realized what the Earth wanted. The Darkling Glory could not see through the swirling leaves any better than he could. Gaborn had been circling the monster, stirring up the leaves, and they had blinded the beast.

“Now drive hard right!” Gaborn shouted. Langley complied. Gaborn's Days raced at his tail.

In a moment they were galloping south over a trail through the trees, running parallel to the path of the Durkin Hills Road, while the Darkling Glory roared in confusion behind.