Defiant Swords (Durlindrath #2) (15 page)

Brand did not take a backward step. He drew his sword, but
he knew that battle could not get him out of this. What he needed was time, but
no man ever had enough of that.

Already he sensed Kareste begin to focus her will next to
him. Her head was bowed, and her hands held tight Shurilgar’s staff.

The witch spoke. “Now is the time, Brand of the Duthenor.
Choose death, or choose … something else.”

“My choice was made long ago,” he answered.

“Then you will die.”

“Perhaps. But I doubt it.”

She studied him. “So confident? It’s a trait of the young,
though I won’t say you have no reason for it. But you have less now than usual,
surrounded on all sides by enemies that overpower you.”

“Not surrounded.”

“Ha! You speak of Kareste, and you would buy her time for
the enchantment she begins. But what enchantment? To free poor Halathrin souls?
So much I discern that she has told you. And truly, it could only be done with
one of the halves of Shurilgar’s broken staff. And yet, brave fool, have you
not thought what else could be done with the broken half she carries now? What
she does even as we speak?”

Brand offered no answer.

“I will tell you, brave fool. She holds in her hands the
same power by which the beasts were made. By it they can be
released … or they can be
controlled
. She could make them her
own creatures and be a force in the world, and with the staff in her possession
it would just be the beginning.”

He looked at Kareste. She now lifted her gaze upward. Her
face was expressionless. Her ash-blond hair shimmered like the beasts. Her green-gold
eyes glittered, filled with incalculable power. She looked resplendent,
beautiful beyond words, but distant and terrible as implacable fate.

She did not look at him. She did not look at the witch. The
wolf-beasts howled and the crows danced madly within the willows.

“Kill her now!” cried Durletha. “Or all that follows, the
great Shadow that will spread across the land, will be your fault. Kill her
now, while her mind is deep within her enchantment, or be condemned by all who
loved and trusted you.” 

Brand gritted his teeth. No man could make such choices, and
yet he caught a glimpse of the long life of Aranloth, the many such choices he
must have made, and appreciated anew what he had given of himself for the
protection of the land. And he appreciated also what a burden it was.

He shifted his grip on the Halathrin blade. It glittered
blue-white beside the dark waters of the tarn that he was backed up against.

His gaze went to the witch. And then to Kareste once more.
He had though the choice to be made was hers, had thought that she must choose
either Light or Shadow. That was certainly true, but he must also choose, and
the world had suddenly become far less clear-cut than he had thought.

Beyond the ever-present but rarely seen extremes of Light
and Shadow was the place that men must live. And what might be a dark deed to
one was an act of heroism to another.

He did not know what to do, but after a moment he
straightened.

A bitter brew you have mixed for me,” he said to the witch.
“But I came to the table when I agreed to this quest, and now I must drink my
fill, for good or for ill.”

She looked at him with hard eyes, and he thought that he
detected a mixture of frustration and surprise in them. There was, perhaps,
even admiration.

“Truly, you have a devil inside you. There’s just no give. 
Do you know what you could achieve if only you set yourself free of constraints?”

Brand shrugged. He was happy to talk. It gave time to
Kareste.

“There’s no devil inside me. I’m just a simple man trying to
do the right things for the people I love.”

“Love will get you killed.”

“And so might hate. Or greed. Or ambition. Or, for that
matter, cowardice. And anyway, perhaps it’s better to die trying to do right,
than to live knowing you’ve done wrong. What do you think?”

The witch let out a long breath and gave a slight shrug of
her bony shoulders.

“I think that you are not a simple man at all. But it does
not matter what I think, anymore. Events have come to a head. I will have the
staff now, even if I must kill you, for others come for it, and I
will
have it. It is easier to take it from her now than to wait and try to take it
from them later.”

Brand shifted slightly so that he stood between Kareste and
the witch.

“For all your words, you still do not attack. I think you
would prefer the beasts to do your work for you. But they make no move. They
sense Kareste’s enchantment building, sense that she will set them free. Or can
you not feel that?”

The witch turned slightly and her gaze darted to the beasts.

Brand had no idea if what he had said was true, but it sent
a shiver of doubt through her, and it gave him the opportunity he was looking
for.

Surprise was his friend, and he needed all the help he could
get, for once Durletha turned on him, which she was about to do, he would be
outmatched.

He had held the sword before him, but it was with Aranloth’s
staff that he attacked. He did not doubt that he had to use it, to draw on the
power that was in him, for without his protection Kareste would die and the
Halathrin would be trapped forever. He would deal with the consequences later.

Bright flame, blue-white, shot from the tip of the staff. It
enveloped the witch, knocked her down and sent the beasts scattering to get
away from her.

A moment she rolled on the ground, and then she was up, her
eyes blazing. Her hand darted forward, fingers spread. Green flame dripped from
them, and then it shot in a shimmering spray at Kareste.

Brand knew the attack was directed at her, even though he
stood in the way, he felt it in the driving force of the flame; it struck him,
but it mostly sought to get passed him.

He felt the heat of the attack, and the grass at his feet
withered and blackened. Yet a blue-white nimbus had sprung up about his body,
summoned by some reflex of his mind to protect him, and it expanded and shrank,
stifling the green flame.

But the witch was not done. She raised her other hand and
sent a second stream of fire at him.

Brand felt the force of it envelop him. The nimbus
flickered, and he sank to his knees as though burdened with a weight beyond his
strength to carry.

The green flames darkened, turning near black. He felt ever greater
heat from them, and the blackened grass at his feet disappeared in smoke while the
very earth itself began to seethe and bubble.

Brand thought of Cardoroth. He thought of Gilhain and
Aranloth, of Shorty and Taingern. He thought of Arell.

He lifted his head. His eyes blazed. There was a free and
reckless surge in his spirit. It was something that he had felt a few times
before: the darker the hour, the greater the light within him shone. So it felt
now. He staggered to his feet, and then he took a pace toward Durletha. And
then another one. He found that with each step his strength seemed to grow.

Durletha looked at him, her eyes wide. The green flame
sputtered and died.

“There
is
a devil in you,” she said.

Brand took another pace forward, his staff held high in one
hand, his sword in the other.

Durletha shook her head. “You make it hard for me to kill
you, but courage is no match for skill. Of the first you have an abundance, of
the latter—”

She did not finish that sentence. Instead, she made a quick gesture
with her left hand. The fog that was all about them shuddered, and then like an
arrow shot from a bow, it darted at Brand. As a wall it struck him, but it was
no longer insubstantial.

The fog roiled and bubbled about him. It was become heavy as
water, though it did not fall to the ground. Instead, it pressed in on him,
forcing its way into his mouth and ears and eyes. He clenched his jaw and
squeezed his eyes shut, but the water still drove into his nose.

He coughed and spluttered, lifting his arms to try to
protect his face. He staggered toward Durletha, but she stepped nimbly away
from him.

He could not breathe. Soon, he would choke and pass out. And
then he was likely to drown, for already he felt the first specks of water in
his lungs. That made him cough, but the moment he opened his mouth to do so, water
forced its way in there, too.

He did what he did not wish to do: turn his back on
Durletha. It left him even more vulnerable, and it did not stop the water as he
thought it might. It followed him wherever he went, like someone with a pillow relentlessly
trying to smother him.

He opened his eyes. The water rushed at them, yet through
the rush he could still see a little of what was going on.

Kareste had not moved. She stood as she had done, but dark
forces swirled around her. It was something that he sensed more than saw, and
whatever she was doing occupied her completely. She could not help him, even if
she wanted too. More, he sensed those dark forces reaching out to the beasts.
She was binding them to her, joining with them, or the otherworldly power
within them, and his heart sank.

Durletha may have been right in what she claimed before. Or
not. Brand had no time to think, to get a true feel for what Kareste was doing.
There was little time left for him, and he must soon discover a way out of the
witch’s trap, or die. Instinct had saved him the first time, but now, if he was
to save himself again, he must draw on some knowledge or skill.

He fell to his knees. Not because he was quite incapacitated
yet, but because it would assure Durletha that her attack was working. That
might encourage her to just keep on going as she was. He did not need a knife
in the back as well.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw some of the beasts. They
howled, heads lifted up, snouts pointing to the sky, but he could hear nothing
except the rush of water in his ears.

At least they were not attacking. Even if Kareste was
binding them to her, it was helping him just at the moment. For if they
attacked him now there was nothing he could do about it.

Blue-white fire still sputtered on Aranloth’s staff. And
where the rushing water touched it wisps of steam rose into the air. He stared
at it, and then, dimly, an idea came to him.

He coughed and spluttered, feeling water reach his lungs,
and with it a cold rush of heart-pounding panic. Yet he drew his will together
and concentrated. It was harder than it had been before, much harder, for it
was not instinctive. Yet the blue-white nimbus sprang to life about him once
more.

This time he did not use it as a shield. Nor did he attack
with it. Instead, he joined his thought with the water that surrounded him, and
the lòhrengai he had summoned followed wherever his thought went.

Nothing happened. But he was not done. Having joined his
lòhrengai with the witchery, he began to will the blue-white nimbus to grow
hot. And hot it grew.

Steam sizzled through the air. Immediately he felt a
lessening of the pressure of the water. He opened his eyes, stood, and faced
Durletha.

He could not see her properly for all the steam and fog and
light that surrounded him. But he saw enough to bring confidence to him. Her
face showed surprise. She had thought him beaten, and he was not beaten. He
stood taller.

The last of the water evaporated into the air. Still, he
coughed, and each breath he drew felt as fire. Yet he looked at her with
determination in his eyes, and he sensed her chagrin.

“Well,” she said. “Aren’t you just full of surprises? But I
have the skill to play this game all day. Do you?”

He grinned at her. “Perhaps you do. But I know now that mine
is the greater strength. Leave now, while you can. Give up the
staff – it is not for you. It is a thing of the past, and it has no
place in the world of today. Its evil
will
be destroyed.”

“No,” she said. “I’ll have it. Though I don’t see why you
would try to stop me. What difference does it make to you if she has it,” the
witch pointed to Kareste, “or me? In either case, it will
never
be
destroyed.”

“But it will,” he said. “The difference is
this – I trust her.
She
will destroy it. And you never would.”

“Fool!” Durletha hissed. “No one can wield such sorcerous
power as she now does and not succumb to it. The staff will own her, if it does
not already. Had you ever met its maker, had you ever met Shurilgar, you would
know how great he was, and how strong his will. And his will lingers in the
staff.”

Brand winked at her. It was a gesture so out of place that
it surprised her. And his following words threw her off balance even more.

“You know much, and you guess more. But you do not know all.
When first I came to Cardoroth I met Shurilgar, or the spirit of him that
haunted the dark woods of Lake Alithorin after his death. He turned his will
upon me, and I survived. I defeated him, and set him wailing away in the dark.
I do not fear him, and I fear you less. And as for Kareste—”

He ceased speaking and struck. All the while that he had
been talking he had heard the crows caw and flap in the willows by the tarn. He
took that sound and drew it together with his will, sending it as a spear at
her.

Durletha flung up a haggard old arm, the rags she wore
billowing with the sudden movement. But she moved with speed and confidence
that bellied her looks. The driven sound struck her, sending he reeling back,
but a shield of green flickered to life around her arm, and then she steadied
herself and smiled at him. Her grin was gap-toothed. Her hooked nose twitched,
and then she flung his own attack back at him.

But he was ready. With a wave of his sword, now flickering blue-white
with lòhrengai, he knocked it to the side. The blade rang with a strange sound,
and then he advanced.