Mortal Consequences (15 page)

Leaping far to the left, Thornwing forced the shaman to swivel on his hurt leg. Before he turned completely, her tip slithered in to pink him over the kidneys. Now he was really in trouble, for to let an opponent strike behind meant imminent death. Chest heaving, Sunbright stamped on his good leg, thrust straight out, made the blow a feint, and jabbed high to snag her armpit. Thornwing jumped like a scalded cat when tagged. Blood ran down her ribs. “The cub remembers!” she said.

“Everything!” Sunbright hissed. Sweat in his eyes made him curse. That, and desperation.

Thornwing played a game of shuffling side to side. Sunbright had to weave like a snake before a hawk. Shuffling farther, again to his bad side, she ducked low, snapped up her blade tip, thumped his wounded elbow so steel cut to bone.

Pain lanced through Sunbright’s frame, and made his muscles spasm and go limp, but fury and battle-lust flooded him too. Shouting “Ra-vens!”, he leaped.

Again, Thornwing skipped backward, counting on speed to get out of range, but Sunbright’s fury energized his muscles and shut off the pain. The swordswoman raised her blade to bat Harvester aside. Rather than be brushed off, Sunbright flexed his wrists and mighty arm and locked her blade hilt to hilt. For a second Thornwing hesitated as to which way to jump. In that instant, Sunbright drove both feet hard and crashed into her.

Bowled backward, the woman grunted. Sunbright shoved until she stumbled and crashed on her back. The shaman crashed atop her, and smashed both knees into her breadbasket to drive out her wind. Pressing the back of his thick blade, he mashed both swords to within a whisker of her throat. Thornwing lay very still lest she be sliced, and whispered, “Yield.”

Sunbright climbed off wearily. Much of his strength had run out with blood, for he was slashed at elbow, neck, knuckles, wrist, kidneys, and elsewhere. Yesterday’s thigh wound had split anew and soaked his bandage. Assessing the wounds, he didn’t feel bad about using superior strength to beat Thornwing down. Idly he wondered: Would she have killed me?

The crowd stirred, watching Thornwing picked up and dusted off. She was almost as bloody as Sunbright, he noted with satisfaction, but that satisfaction didn’t last long.

Tired, aching, raspy-throated from screaming, Sunbright gargled, “Who’s tomorrow?”

“I,” Magichunger, a broad-shouldered man with scruffy red hair and beard answered. “I’ll use their sword also.”

Sunbright was too spent to care. “Good luck,” he muttered, and limped off.

“Magichunger’s never liked me. I don’t know why. It goes back to childhood. I think he was jealous of the shaman’s son, born with powers, while he had none, hence his name. I may have failed in this, Knucklebones. I need that miracle.”

They sat again on the rock overlooking the wasteland, watched the mountain shadow like a great sea wave eat the land. Tonight their roles were reversed, with Sunbright gloomy and Knucklebones oddly content. “Miracles come in many guises,” she told him.

He squinted at her, but she gazed into the distance. “That sounds like shaman talk.”

“I used to love one,” she said, “so perhaps he rubbed off on me.”

“Used to?”

Smiling, she turned his head and kissed him, but he broke off with a sigh, patted her thigh, and slid off the boulder. He was aching and stiff and slow, yet game. “Let’s get on with it,” he said, and the thief followed quietly.

Under many torches on long poles, the tribe bickered and wagered and argued. Off to one side, a clump of men and women drew in the sand and gestured wildly. Sunbright wondered what they drew. The crowd roared when they saw the fighter, and made way. Unsheathing Harvester, he kissed his mother, then his lover, and limped into the circle.

Magichunger had stripped off his short shirt to stand in breeches such as townsmen wore. With his bearded face and unkempt hair, he looked more city-dweller than tundra man. He carried the borrowed sword easily in one hand. The blade was polished silver-bright. It had hurt Sunbright’s swollen and skinned hands just to hone Harvester. Grimly, the shaman planted his feet.

“Let’s begin.”

“A prayer!” The crowd’s roar startled him. “The invocation! It’s tradition!”

Stunned, Sunbright realized he’d forgotten. More than he, the tribe led a prayer to Amaunator. After, Magichunger flicked up his blade.

Sunbright swung Harvester to a defensive position. The familiar heft comforted him, but the heavy nose sagged. Plagued with wounds, he was worn down, in trouble already. He sent up a personal prayer to the Keeper of Law.

Magichunger knew his weakness and charged. Shouting his clan name, “White Bears!”, he swung two-handed as if chopping a tree. The shaman dodged on legs afire, and brought Harvester around to meet the blow. Their blades clanged fearfully, and Sunbright lost ground as he staggered sideways. Magichunger, a poor swordsman but strong, hastily drew back and swung again. Sunbright feinted to meet this new blow, then slipped his blade underneath and snapped his wrists. Harvester’s hook creased Magichunger’s ribs, spilling a web of blood down his sweaty, tanned hide. Shocked, the foe blundered out of range, then roared and charged anew. On leaden legs, Sunbright backed himself, pushed with Harvester flat on, and tried to trip his enemy. His tired foot didn’t travel far enough, and he just ticked Magichunger’s.

Sensing the touch, Magichunger flailed the sword backhand, even as he scrambled by. Sunbright jerked up Harvester, but too slow. The borrowed blade slammed his own aside, and razor-keen steel smacked his temple. Lights blinked in Sunbright’s brain. Slashed to the bone, stunned, the shaman saw the crowd dim, then black out as if swallowed by fog.

He only passed out for a second, for he felt his head and shoulder strike sand. Feebly, he kicked to cup his hands and rise, but missed and flopped on his back. Harvester was an anchor and chain on one arm, pulling him down to drown. Blood ran over his face, pooled in his ear, trickled into his mouth so he spluttered. Fighting darkness, he forced his eyes open.

Standing over him, one boot planted on Harvester, blade poised to cleave his throat, waited Magichunger.

“I win!” he crowed. The crowd, rife with mixed emotions, gurgled rather than cheered.

“Concede,” Sunbright croaked.

“No!” a voice shouted. “No, he must die!”

“No!” someone else yelled, though in agreement or denial no one could tell.

“A challenger can’t concede! It is law!” yelled another.

“Is that true?”

Argument spun around and around.

Finally someone prevailed on old blind Iceborn, who guttered sadly, “It is true. A challenger cannot concede, only win or die. It is tradition.”

“Finish him!” yelled a bloodthirsty soul.

“No, we need him!” snapped another.

“He must die!”

“Let him live!”

“Hold!” shrilled a voice above the tumult. “I claim right of combat!”

“What?” echoed dozens of voices. A burble of confusion filled the night sky. Even Sunbright was confused, until he saw someone step into the ring.

A small woman, stripped to leathers, barefoot, brass knuckledusters winking on both hands, called in a steady voice, “I am Knucklebones of Karsus. I have listened to the tales of your tribe, and the arguments over custom, but one rule is clear. A person too young or too old or too ailing to fight may choose a champion. I claim the right to fight for Sunbright!”

Tumult, bickering, squabbling. Someone argued, “He is none of those!”

Knucklebones answered, “He was ailing before he began the fight!”

“But she’s not one of us!” came a cry.

“No matter!”

More noise, customs, and curses hurled back and forth.

Knucklebones cut to the chase, pointed her finger at Magichunger, and called, “Do you accept?”

“I do!” the man yelled before thinking.

“Then stand aside!”

Stooping, Knucklebones caught Sunbright’s arm, levered him up, and passed him to Monkberry and a few willing hands. Sunbright finally found his voice. “You’re a miracle … in disguise?”

“A gift from the gods,” she quipped. She picked up his sword. “I said I’d help however I can.”

Helpless, and knowing protest was useless, the shaman didn’t argue. “You’ll need a few years’ practice to heft that sword,” he said.

“This pig iron? This crowbar?” A brittle laugh. “I’ve all I need here.”

Handing the sword past the ring, the tiny thief approached the towering Magichunger. He’d wrapped a hasty bandage around ribs, his only wound. The redhead sneered, “Sunbright sends a half-grown girl to fight?”

“I’ve seen forty summers, stripling!” the part-elf shot back. Sunbright blinked. He hadn’t known she was that old! “And I talk with this!”

Stooping to a knife-fighting stance, she whipped out her long elven blade. Dark, casting no reflection, it seemed invisible in the night.

Magichunger watched as if hypnotized, a chicken staring down a hawk. He muttered, “T’will do you no good. If I kill you, Sunbright has to fight the next duel. If you kill me, t’will do no good either, for you must fight the rest.”

“One battle at a time,” cooed the veteran of a thousand duels. “First, I’ll flay your stinking hide. See if you have a heart.”

Despite his long sword, Magichunger gulped, but he grabbed the pommel two-handed, cocked it over a shoulder, and aimed to slice the thief in half. Knucklebones tensed.

“Hold again!” boomed a voice. “I stop this fight, and all others!”

Sagging in his mother’s lap, Sunbright lifted his head at the new interruption. Monkberry wept tears of joy. “There,” the old woman said, “is our miracle!”

“Praise Jannath the Golden Goddess! It works! It works!”

Carried away, Candlemas whirled and grabbed the first person at hand, a wispy lesser mage named Jacinta. Two other mages laughed to see the chubby mage dance with the young woman, then laughed harder when he grabbed their hands and swung all three in a circle. Farm hands, gathered to witness the miracle, clapped their hands and hooted and stamped their feet.

The scene was a remote valley amidst steep hills covered with ash and elm trees, bottomed by a trio of jewel-like lakes. At the head of the valley was a small square keep of black stone and a few peasant cottages. The floor of the valley, split by a glistening stream, was not farmed in typically ancient meandering lots, but quartered with geometric precision and planted with every type of grain crop: wheat, barley, rye, spelt, oats, bran, timothy…. It was near a small bridge over the stream, at the sharp edge of the wheat field, that magicians capered like children.

“Whew!” Candlemas huffed to a halt. Two hundred and fifteen years old, he was still in his prime, but long hours and good food had slowed him down. Dressed in a plain brown smock and rope sandals, pudgy and bald with a bushy black beard, an observer would never know Candlemas was a leading mentalist of his time. In fact, hardly anyone in the Netherese Empire, archwizard or lowest peasant, knew where Candlemas was, or what he’d been attempting. And after three long years—

“I’ve done it! We’ve done it, for you’ve all helped, my friends! And you shall reap the rewards, and the ages shall sing praises to your names! But come, let us watch!”

With brown, work-worn hands, Candlemas parted wheat stalks and ran amidst them. Lifting his head high, he could see how, ahead in a wandering line, wheat was stained a bright red like rust. But when he brushed the stalks with his hands, the red dust was knocked free to shimmer down like fiery snow and disappear amidst the yellow stalks. Candlemas laughed at the sight.

“Oh, they will sing praises to my name, just as Sunbright prophesied!”

“Milord?” asked Jacinta, who was thin and colorless as wheat. “What prophecy is that?”

“Eh? Oh, it was—it’s a long story,” he said. “Never mind. Look ahead! The spell has jumped the line! It’s working on the barley!” He let out another fierce howl that almost cracked his throat, then stopped running, and stood puffing and grinning.

“You see,” Candlemas told the three gathered mages, “I knew, I mean, a shaman friend of mine … This rust, this crop blight, began—what was it—four years back? From the start I knew it was trouble. Lady Polaris brought it to my attention in Castle Delia, and ordered me to fix it—as if that were simple. The rust ate the heart of the wheat, hollowed the kernels into empty shells, then it spread to other grains, even jumped to apple trees and peaches, which made no sense. A disease stays with its host, usually. It doesn’t attack everything living. I thought we’d never figure it out, but a friend of mine, a barbarian shaman if you can believe it, prophesied I would find a cure, and we have!”

The mage’s voice trailed off as he remembered his enforced adventuring to the future. How frustrated he’d been as steward to the estates of Lady Polaris, when suddenly he was ripped up and transported to the future, where he witnessed the destruction of the empire.

And he remembered how, returned to his own time, he’d found a new goal in life, and succeeded. This morning, as the sun rose, he’d brought out a potion, one of thousands he’d experimented with. It contained brimstone and antimony, quicksilver and iron filings, fennel and cuckoo’s pintel, and lungwort and foxglove. He’d chanted to Mystryl, Mother of Magic; and Jannath, Grain Goddess, She Who Shapes All. He’d invoked spells by the dozen: Prug’s plant control, Anglin’s wall, Fahren’s glitterdust, Shan’s web. Then, kneeling, almost weeping with exhaustion, he’d dumped the potion at the roots of the rust-ridden wheat that gleamed like blood in the dawn light.

And performed a miracle. For the earth bubbled and seethed where the potion spilled, and a soft green glow enwrapped the leaning stalks of wheat. Like a green fire, the spell whisked through the field. And where it touched, rust fell away like dust, leaving the young kernels green and healthy and growing, fit food for man and beast. Nor did the spell quit, but took strength from the land itself, and spread out in rippling waves, cleansing all the crops of the blight and moving on to purify more growth.

For the first time in decades, Candlemas looked out over his work and felt pride. The last successful spell he’d completed had been—when? When he’d jerked himself and Sunbright and Knucklebones back from the future. Yet that glow of pride, his second-greatest accomplishment after today’s, still haunted him, for in that moment he’d lost the only woman he ever loved. She’d chosen to remain with her beloved city, and had died with it. Since then, Candlemas had been alone.