Stormwarden (20 page)

XI
Backlash

"There!" shouted the Kielmark. He raised a muscled arm and pointed at the intruders. Cloaked in black like scavenger crows, a woman and a boy with a sword stood on a ledge of rock seventy yards above the beach. Who they were and what purpose had brought them to Cliffhaven made no difference. Three guardsmen lay dead, most likely of poison; for that crime, they would never receive pardon.

With blue eyes narrowed to slits of anger, the Lord of Cliffhaven commanded his men at arms. "You." His gesture singled out a horseman on the fringes. "Ride to the east station and bring back archers." The man appointed wheeled his mount, spurred at once to a gallop. The Kielmark raised his voice over drumroll of retreating hooves. "The rest of you cordon that cliff. Cut off every possibility of escape. When the bowmen arrive, you will close in and take the boy and the woman alive."

The men broke ranks with alacrity, aware their performance might later be reviewed to the last critical detail. But this once, the Kielmark's concern lay elsewhere. Tense as a caged lion, he paced the tide mark, stooping now and again to examine scattered fragments of planking which once had been a boat. The keel and a few ribs were intact, enough to determine the craft's dimensions. The Kielmark planted his foot on the wreckage, and with thumbs hooked in his sword belt, regarded the corpses sprawled upon the beach. After a moment he spat in the sand and swore with a violence few men ever witnessed and lived to describe.

The boat, an aged, ungainly rig, at least explained why last night's watch had ignored his most urgent directive, that every person who trespassed on Cliffhaven be reported on sight. Probably the three had shirked duty on the assumption such a clumsy craft should carry equally harmless passengers. The mistake had killed them. That much was simple justice, the Kielmark reflected, and he fingered the pommel of his sword in temperamental fury. Though spared the nuisance of three hangings for disobedience, he still confronted the consequence the dead men's negligence had wrought.

The woman and the boy remained on the ledge, pinned in position by the relentless efficiency of the guardsmen. The base of the ice cliffs lay ringed by a glittering half circle of weapons and a full score more men waited on horseback, prepared to ride down any attempted escape through the lines. The presentation was perfect, each man alert at his post with his spear held angled and ready for instant action. Yet the Kielmark scratched his bearded jaw, distinctly unsettled. Where other commanders might disdain to pitch sixty men at arms against an unarmed woman and a boy, the King of Renegades acted without a second's hesitation. He deployed his finest company precisely because his trespassers seemed so contemptibly vulnerable.

With the wily patience of the desert wolf, the Kielmark studied the two who had dared trespass his domain. The boy evidently knew no swordplay, he gripped his weapon like a simple stick. The Kielmark dismissed him as terrified and ordinary, turning eyes cold and bleak as glacial ice upon the silver-haired woman who stood at the boy's side. A less careful man might have wasted precious minutes in appreciation of her strikingly beautiful form. The Lord of Cliffhaven searched only for inconsistency which might lend him advantage; and the woman's utter lack of concern jarred him like a sour note in counterpoint. Anyone confronted by sixty men at arms could be expected to show distress, but the only tension visible about this woman was in the hand she held clenched at her throat.

Revelation struck the Kielmark between one stride and the next. Arrogance on that scale accompanied none but an enchanter's power; if the woman had slain last night's watch with sorcery, even an armed company could well prove no match for her. Fearful for the lives under his command, the Kielmark sprinted up the beach. Whoever the woman was, she came for Anskiere, but not as his ally; any friend of the Stormwarden's would never have done murder.

"Back!" shouted the Kielmark. He waved his arm at the cliff. "Withdraw from the ice."

The troop captain glanced around, stupidly surprised. Irate, the Kielmark shouted again with an edge to his tone no officer under him dared disobey.
"Pull those men back!"

White with alarm, the captain barked an order. The formation coalesced, initiated an orderly retreat. And the Kielmark cursed and regarded the woman once again, his great corded fist clenched in frustration around the hilt of his sword.

The jangle of weapons and linkmail echoed and bounded off the ice, threaded through by the rapid beat of hooves. Riders approached, the archers the Kielmark had sent for earlier. He spun to meet them, planted his massive frame squarely in their path. To avoid riding him down, the lead horseman reined back from a gallop with a violence that yanked his rawboned mount onto its haunches. The animal scrambled down the steep side of the dune, and sand showered over the Kielmark's leather leggings as it plunged to a halt scarcely a yard away. The Kielmark sprang forward, snatched the bow from the scabbard at the saddlebow. He grabbed for an arrow while the two score archers summoned from the east station thundered to a standstill around him. Without pause for explanation, the Kielmark shouldered clear of the press, bent the bow, raised it to the woman on the ledge. He aimed for the triangle of bare flesh framed by her black wool collar, and the drift of her fine silver hair.

His target made no move in defense. Her lips parted with amusement, and she laughed aloud at the notched threat of the arrow. A gust eddied her cloak hem. The Kielmark released. His shaft hissed skyward, described a flawless arc across the morning sky. The woman's smile dissolved. She lifted her hand. The arrow deflected, cracked harmlessly into rock, and rebounded in slivers.

"Sorcery!" shouted the captain. "She's a witch!" He raised crossed wrists in the traditional sign against evil, just as the woman touched both hands to the gold which encircled her neck.

Her gesture overturned the elements. Air howled suddenly overhead, as if a dragon had appeared out of legend and inhaled a piece of sky. With a crackle like tearing fabric, the woman and boy vanished as if they had never existed, transferred elsewhere by forces wrenched from the framework of Anskiere's geas. The Kielmark cursed with savage eloquence and flung down the bow.

Backlash struck an instant later as the powers the woman tapped to execute her escape ripped all else out of equilibrium.

Wind screamed off the sea, whined over cliff and dune and beach head. Sucked into a whirling tornado of force, the gale spiraled across the ice cliffs, bashing men and horses from their feet and uprooting trees like twigs. Hammered to his knees, blinded by a maelstrom of driven sand, the Kielmark buried his face in his hands. Somewhere to his right a horse thrashed and a wounded man screamed in agony; but the sounds seemed strangely overpowered. A second later the Kielmark divined the reason. Driven to towering heights by the wind, breakers raged shoreward, crests frayed into spindrift. Icy spray dashed the Kielmark's cheek, proof his shores were presently being ravaged by forces none but a weather mage could subdue. Every man ordered to duty beneath the ice cliffs stood in peril of drowning.

Determined to prevent losses, the Kielmark tore off the sash which bound his tunic and flung it over his face to protect his eyes. The gale harried the cloth, snapped it out of his fingers as he tried to tie a knot. He struggled, too stubborn to quit. At last, protected by his makeshift blindfold, he leaned into the wind and gained his feet.

Weather harried his every movement. Stung by flying sand and deafened by the rage of the elements, the Kielmark battled for each step gained; the effort taxed even his great strength. Never in memory had Cliffhaven's shores been beset by so violent a gale. Aware the entire island might be affected, the Kielmark forged ahead, possessed by outrage. He swore. There would be survivors; but the inevitable waste of men and resources galled him without end.

Laboring into the wind, he blundered into a man's wrist. Encouraged to find at least one of his guardsmen alive, the Kielmark guided the man's fingers to his belt. The wind screamed like a torture victim in his ears, making any word of encouragement impossible. The Kielmark granted the man a moment to steady himself, then plowed forward and sought after another. Soon he had gathered a small band of survivors. The stronger ones lent their efforts to his, and gradually the group gained on the storm and pulled back, away from the rampaging seas and into the scanty shelter of the dunes.

Even there, gale wind shrieked and buffeted their shoulders, sharp and punitive as a lash. Braced on widely planted feet, the Kielmark panted for breath. He tugged the cloth from his eyes. Six of his finest fighting men crouched in the lee of the rocks, battered and bleeding and half beaten with exhaustion. One of the horse archers had fallen on his quiver when thrown from the saddle; the broken shaft of an arrow protruded from an ugly wound in his thigh. Close to seventy of Cliffhaven's finest men still struggled for their lives, all for a woman's meddling and a guard captain's failure at duty. Now all of Cliffhaven stood endangered. The Kielmark's great hands knotted into fists and his lip curled in a manner which sent chills down the spines of the men who clustered round him. But his voice and actions remained controlled, after the manner of a wolf stalked by mastiffs.

He touched the arm of the man who stood nearest, and even his shout could barely be heard above the din. "Fetch others. Form a chain. And make sure you place the wounded well up on high ground."

The man nodded, rallied gamely to the task. And concerned for the rest of his island demesne, the Kielmark left the hollow with no more delay. Belabored by the elements, he clambered over rocks and thorny scrub to higher ground. There the scope of the destruction the woman's sorcery had unleashed across Cliffhaven became awesomely apparent. Wind roared in from all points of the compass. The Kielmark was now certain Anskiere's powers had been usurped to complete the woman's transfer to safety. A mass of air had rushed elsewhere upon her departure, and the sharp drop in pressure made it plain a gale would follow, fiercer than any tempest. A towering line of squalls spanned the horizon as far as the eye could see. The speed of the storm's approach defied all credibility. Throughout a lifetime of collecting tales, only once had the Kielmark ever heard such weather described, and then by a gouty old salt who claimed to have survived the drowning of Tierl Enneth. Impossibly, a similar horror beset Cliffhaven.

The Kielmark rejected the inertia of despair. He crashed like a bull through the thornbrakes, and by luck stumbled across a loose horse. He caught the bridle, vaulted astride without touching the stirrup, then slashed the reins of the animal's flank again and again, until its white hide quivered, flecked scarlet. Sped by pain and panic, the animal galloped mindlessly. The Kielmark shouted like a madman and urged it still faster.

Except for a few scattered steadings, Cliffhaven's population lived mostly on high ground. But several families of refugees left homeless by Anskiere's earlier tempest sheltered yet in the warehouses by the dockside; if the sea rose, they would perish. Racing the closing storm as if Kor's Accursed howled at his heels, the Kielmark drove the horse beyond safe limits. He would arrive in time to save his own, he swore by his very life. And he vowed also, for each death and every injury accrued beneath the ice cliffs that morning, the next man, child, or woman who dared set foot on Cliffhaven in the name of Anskiere of Elrinfaer would be put to the sword.

* * *

The axeblade whistled through the air and bit cleanly into the center of the old beech stump by the cabin door. Warmed by exertion, Telemark the forester leaned against the woodpile and paused to rake the hair back from his face. The air carried the first piquant chill of autumn, and true to habit, the ground before the woodshed held an untidy jumble of logs to be split before the coming winter. But unlike other years, the pile inside already stood waist high; with an invalid boy under his roof, Telemark took no risk of running short of fuel. His canny forest-bred instincts warned that the coming season would be harsh, even for the lands north of the Furlains. Snowfall would be heavy and deep, and wood scarce; but cold weather enhanced the pelts. He could expect good trapping.

Telemark reached once again for the axe, and froze with his fist on the handle. The brushpheasant in the south thicket had stopped calling. Attuned like a musician to the natural rhythm of the woods, the forester listened and swept a glance across the sky to see if a hawk flew overhead. Noisily the brushpheasant took wing, an odd trait for a species whose best defense was camouflage and stillness. That moment Telemark heard the sound which had startled it into flight.

A high keening gust of air rushed down on the clearing from the southeast, bending the treetops like ripe wheat and wrenching off a whirlwind of twigs and leaves and dead branches. The disturbance resembled no weather pattern Telemark had ever known, and even as his hair prickled with alarm he dropped the axe and sprinted for the cabin.

The force overtook him before he reached the doorway. Wind struck with the impact of a battle hammer. Slammed between the shoulders by the brant of its violence, Telemark missed stride, tumbled into a rolling fall which fetched him hard against the stone stoop. Bruised, frightened and half stunned, he groaned and straggled to rise while pelted by a malicious shower of sticks and torn leaves. And above his head, the wind smashed headlong into the door. Leather hinges rent like paper and the latch burst into a fountainhead of sparks. Horrified by recognition, Telemark saw his dwelling assaulted by the powers of sorcery.

Frantic with concern for Jaric, the forester caught hold of the doorframe and dragged himself across the threshold. There he confronted a scene which tore him to the heart. Wind raged like a demon's curse through the cabin's tight confines. Bottles of rare herbs tumbled from the shelves, seasons of careful collecting spoiled in an instant. Tools pin wheeled from their hooks and the polished copper pots from the pantry clattered across the floor, splintering all in their path to wreckage. A meticulous man by nature, Telemark winced and looked beyond the immediate destruction for the boy. The wicker chair lay overturned by the hearth, its stuffed pillows strewn dangerously close to the flames. Jaric sprawled on the floorboards nearby and the blankets which once had covered him flapped like bats across the floor by his side.

Telemark clutched the doorjamb to steady himself. Splintered wood jabbed his palms as the wind buffeted his frame, but the first violence of the assault appeared to be waning. Even as the forester noticed the change, the sorcery set against him dwindled and abruptly died. Ripped from table and shelves and hooks, the belongings he had acquired through long years of solitude lay scattered and smashed in the corners. A pan lid described a drunken circle across the floor, its metallic ring like a shout against sudden silence. Shaking with reaction, Telemark kicked the object to a stop. Then he fell back against the breached security of his wall, and blinked back tears of anger.

Wise to the ways of the world beyond his wood, the forester considered his desecrated home, and knew that the damage resulted from a backlash of power. Somewhere two sorcerers stood in conflict, and a deflection in equilibrium between them had brought rain through his door because the boy he sheltered was somehow involved. Telemark twisted his hands in his sleeves, pained by the inevitable; no safety existed for Jaric here. Whoever the boy on his hearthstone was, he had enemies beyond the capabilities of any forester, even one who had once served mercenaries in the Duke's army. The decision weighed heavily on Telemark's heart. Yet he dared not keep the boy longer; with sorcerers involved, the peril was too great to shoulder in solitude.

Beyond the door the brushpheasant called, returned to its thicket. Assured the immediate danger was past, Telemark crossed the littered floor and stooped at Jaric's side. Though deeply unconscious, the boy seemed physically undamaged; time would determine whether anything else was amiss. With the stiff-lipped expression he assumed when commanded to snare songbirds for the Duke's menagerie, Telemark gathered the boy off the floor.

With unsteady hands he laid Jaric on the cot in the corner, then paced restlessly to the window. Except for a mangled drift of branches by the shed, the forest stood unchanged, its green depths a balm to the eye after the pathetic wreckage inside the cabin. The shadows slanted only slightly; if he hurried, he could be across the ferry by sunset. The town gates closed promptly at nightfall. Much as the forester cared for Jaric, the sooner the boy was placed in the care of Kor's initiates in Corlin, the better his own peace of mind. Without pausing to sort the ruins of his home, Telemark belted on his sword, slung bow and quiver across his wide shoulders, and bundled his charge into a blanket. Then he lifted Jaric in his arms, picked his way around the slivered door, and turned his steps toward Corlin.

The hollow where the path joined the main trail through Seitforest seemed oddly dark for midday. Telemark frowned, hesitated, and shifted Jaric's weight higher on his shoulder. Something was amiss. Overhead the sky was cloudless, but the light which filtered down through the crowns of the oaks seemed strangely murky. The trees themselves stood hushed, undisturbed even by the busy rustle of squirrels in a place where the acorns lay abundant as beach pebbles among the leaves.

Telemark halted at the edge of a thicket, every sense alert. Leftwards, behind a heavy stand of brush, he heard a footfall stealthy enough that even a wild creature might overlook so slight a sound. He laid Jaric at his feet, and with swift, sure fingers, strung his bow. Then he drew his sword and ran it point first into the moss, with the hilt ready to his hand. And he waited.

No common footpad lurked behind the trees. A human would make more noise, perhaps startle the birds and cause the squirrels to scold from the branches; but no disturbance of man's making could explain the eerie dimmed light. Even as Telemark sought the cause the gloom deepened, as if the very stuff of darkness clotted upon the air. Slowly, cautiously, the forester eased an arrow from his quiver. The familiar grip of the bow felt clammy to his palm as he knocked shaft to string and bent the weapon to full draw. Again he waited, motionless, his muscled arms steady as old knotted wood, and his aim on the brush as unerring as if he stalked the shy satin-deer. But with chill certainty, Telemark knew he hunted no animal.

As the shadow darkened around him, he heard a slight sound, nothing more than the sigh of a brushed leaf. And a pair of eyes gleamed ahead, orange as live coals, and as deadly. Telemark swung the bow fractionally. He brought his arrow to bear, knowing his doom was upon him; for the creature he opposed was of demonkind, a Llondian empath whose defenses no mortal could withstand.

Before Telemark could release, a thought image ripped into his mind, words shot through with a white-hot blaze of agony.
'Mortal, place the weapon down.'

The forester resisted, quivering. Cold sweat beaded his forehead and his streaked hair clung damply to his temples. For the sake of the boy at his feet, he loosed his cramped fingers from the string. The bow sang, transformed by Llondian influence to a note of pure sorrow. The arrow hissed into the brush. In the instant the demon's whistle of anger clove his ears, Telemark saw his shaft rattle through the branches and cleanly miss. Llondian eyes looked up in scarlet accusation. And its anger transformed unbearably into an image sharpened to wound its attacker.

Telemark screamed. He saw the greenery of Seitforest withered, the stately, familiar trees riven from the earth. Blackened roots jabbed at the sky like accusing fingers, and across the vale beyond the Redwater, Corlin Town smoked and blazed; all for an arrow carelessly loosed upon a creature who intended no harm.

There the image ceased. Abruptly released, the forester returned to himself with the echoes of his own cry of pain still ringing in his ears. He straightened, shaking, and saw the cloaked figure of the Llondel poised in the gloom before him. Baleful orange eyes regarded him, and a good deal less steadily Telemark stared back.

"What do you want," he asked hoarsely, and risked a glance at Jaric. The boy appeared unharmed. But only a hole remained where the sword had rested in the ground. The Llondian took no risks.

'Never you take the young fire-bearer to the blue-cloaks,'
the demon sent.

"What?" Telemark spread his hands, palms upward, to show he did not understand.

The Llondel lifted a finger slim and gray as a lichened twig. It pointed to Jaric.
'Never you take,'
and an image of uprooted trees and the smell of burning overlaid the words, sharply defined warning of the demon's powers.

The forester stepped back, unable to contain the desperate cornered fear a songbird knows when the snare closes over its neck. What was he to do with a boy who was shadowed by the meddling of sorcerers, if not leave him with the initiates at Kordane's Sanctuary? To keep Jaric was to risk his death; yet the Llondel's intent was clear. Telemark felt a sensation of well-being brush his mind, plainly an attempt at reassurance. But no man dared trust a demon.

Burdened by a poignant sense of helplessness, Telemark shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said firmly. "I cannot keep the boy. He requires better care and security than I can provide."

The Llondel trilled a treble fifth and moved suddenly, lifting the missing sword from the dusky folds of its cloak. It offered the weapon to the forester, hilt first, with a hiss of aggrieved affront.
'Leave, then.'

Telemark hesitated, unsure of the creature's intent, afraid if he reached for the weapon he would again be made to suffer.

The demon jabbed the pommel impatiently at his chest.
'Man-fool,'
it sent.
'You take.'

Careful to move without threat, the forester raised his hand to the sword. But the instant his flesh touched the grip, demon images clove his mind like the sheared edge of an axeblade, and swept away all semblance of identity.