The Heart of the Sands, Book 3 of The Gods Within (25 page)

“I’m a witch and a healer,”
she said. “So I won’t use magic, but I’ll
use my healing skills.”

He let go of her arm. “Good enough.”

The cut on the boy’s leg was shallow,
probably a slice from a knife or sword, and while it bled a great deal it wasn’t
pulsing. She gripped Braunye’s wrists, put her hands on the boy’s
wound and said, “Put pressure on it like I taught you. I need to
check the man’s wound.”

The warrior had a nasty puncture wound just beneath his
ribs on his left side, probably a thrust from a sword. If the blade had entered
the man’s side at an angle shallow enough, there’d be
no damage to vital organs. If he didn’t bleed internally, she
could treat it with herbs to prevent festering and he had a good chance of
living. But if the blade had gone straight in, he’d have a gut
wound, and even with magic to aid her, it would likely fester and he still
might not live.

She looked up at Fat John, was about to tell him they
needed to get the man off the street so she could work on him, but the rumble of
a large number of horses riding hard drowned out any sound she might make. She
heard neighing and spluttering and men dismounting nearby. The crowd around
them parted and several whiteface warriors towered over her with drawn swords. The
man who appeared to be their leader dropped to one knee beside the wounded man
and asked, “What happened?”

Rhianne said, “He can’t talk
now. He’s hurt.”

The man on one knee ignored her. The wounded warrior
ignored her as well, and grimacing with pain he said, “Kulls . . .
About six of them . . . Weren’t dressed like Kulls
. . . didn’t look like Kulls. And didn’t
seem to be together until they all turned on us and attacked. LillianToc hurt
one—” He cried out and shook with pain. “I
hurt a couple more . . . but there were too many . . . and
they took Felina. Headed east, I think. Took her alive.”

Fat John interposed. “They did go east. I
seen ’em. And they wore Kull cloaks when they rode out of town.”

The wounded man gripped the leader’s arm
desperately. “You got to get her back, Jerst. Got to get her back.”

The leader turned to Rhianne. “We’ll
take him and the boy from here. But we thank you for your aid.”

Though she argued, the whitefaces gave Rhianne no choice
in the matter. They summarily, though gently, ushered her to the other side of
the street. Their leader issued orders for certain whitefaces to remain behind,
then he and his men rode out hard and fast. Rhianne told Braunye to return to
their hut, while she refused to leave until certain the wounded man and boy
were properly taken care of. She stayed until a group of their women arrived on
horseback. She watched them bandage the man and boy’s wounds, and
had to admit they knew what they were doing. But she stubbornly waited until
they’d brought two litters, and carried the man and boy away to
their camp. And for the first time in more than a moon, not a single Benesh’ere
could be seen on Norlakton’s only street.

~~~

Morgin and the smiths were preparing to quench another
blade when they heard voices throughout the camp raised in a general uproar. They
stumbled out of the Forge Hall into the late afternoon sun, and got a confusing
story of Kulls attacking somewhere. With each heartbeat they learned more: the
attack had been in the town, on whitefaces, and they’d taken Felina
alive and ridden east.

They buckled on swords, grabbed their bows and quivers
then sprinted to the corral. Saddling their horses seemed to take an eternity,
but each knew that doing a sloppy job of it now would just leave him on his
butt in the road, probably with a broken bone or two. As they climbed into the
saddle, Baldrak shouted at Morgin, “They’re headed
for the Gods Road. They’ll try to make for Gilguard’s
Ford.”

Morgin spurred Mortiss hard, knew she could easily outpace
the Benesh’ere mounts, could outdistance them and out endure them.
Even he would normally consider such a tactic foolhardy, but if he could catch
the Kulls before they reached the ford, use his shadowmagic to protect him and
Mortiss, perhaps use it to spirit away Felina if they stopped to rest their
mounts, or use it to harass and slow them if they didn’t, there
might be a chance. So he gave Mortiss her head and let her ride like the
netherwind.

He’d long known she had few of the
limitations of a normal horse, guessed she’d been born of some
netherlife, and she confirmed that now as she pulled him into a state slightly
removed from simple mortality.
Thank you, old friend,
he thought, knowing she could cover leagues at a pace beyond that of any mortal
horse. He didn’t know if she sensed his desire, or if she just
knew what was needed, but tendrils of the netherworld brushed through his soul
as she raced down the road, and he prayed she would find some way to cross the
distance before the halfmen reached the ford.

When she reached the Gods Road, he reined her in for a
moment and looked back down the smaller road to Norlakton. Far back he saw the
leading elements of his Benesh’ere brethren charge into view. He
turned Mortiss north and spurred her on, and she screamed a hellish cry, an oath
that she would not fail him.

About a league up the Gods Road Morgin and Mortiss rounded
a curve in the road and he saw two Kulls a hundred paces distant, seated atop
their horses, swords drawn and waiting for him. The Kull leader had left a few
halfmen behind to slow him, and when they saw him they spurred their horses
into a charge. He and Mortiss bore down on them, the distance closing between
him and the two Kulls. The two halfmen rode their horses on either edge of the
road, intending to force Mortiss to ride between them. But at the last instant
Mortiss swerved; she didn’t charge off the road as Morgin thought
she might, but instead swerved right into the path of the Kull horse on the
right.

The impact produced a monstrous crash that threw Morgin into
the air. He kept his balance, hit the ground feet first, turned it into a
tuck-and-roll, which, after one roll, turned into a tumbling sprawl. He jumped
to his feet, amazed he was still alive, amazed he didn’t have any
broken bones. The Kull horse and rider they’d rammed lay sprawled
in the road, both unmoving. Mortiss, her eyes glowing pits of red fire, faced
the other Kull horse and rider, reared once and crushed the horse’s
skull. The horse went down; she reared again and crushed the Kull’s
chest.

When she turned to Morgin and trotted up to him he wasn’t
sure if the glow in her eyes stemmed from the fires of netherhell, or the flow
of godmagic, and he didn’t care. He climbed into the saddle,
spurred her on, and again she rode like the netherwind.

Twice more he met Kulls waiting in the road for him, and
twice more Mortiss dispatched them rather handily. A league after the third
such encounter the rear of the main Kull column came into view far in the
distance, riding hard up the road. From the terrain about them Morgin knew they
were nearing the ford, and he spurred her harder, racing to intercept the Kulls
before they reached the ford. But when he saw water fountaining up in giant
splashes from the pounding hooves of the Kull horses, he knew then that he’d
lost the race. His heart dropped, and he sat up in the saddle, relaxed the
reins and Mortiss slowed from a charge to a gallop, then a canter, then a trot,
then she slowed to a walk that brought them up to the bank of the ford. He got
there just in time to see the Kulls spurring their horses up onto the north
bank of the Ulbb.

The Kull lieutenant had a small bundle strapped across his
saddle, and he reined his horse around to look back at Morgin. He threw his
head back and laughed, braying a loud caw of triumph that echoed off the nearby
hills. “ShadowLord,” he shouted. “Oh
mighty Elhiyne.”

The bundle across his saddle remained deathly still, and
as he untied the straps that held it there, Morgin’s whiteface
friends caught up with him, riding horses that staggered with exhaustion. Morgin
looked into their faces, and again he saw no sorrow at the knowledge of what
had just transpired, saw only that grim resolution he’d seen at
the funeral pyre after the March.

“ShadowLord,” the Kull
lieutenant called.

He finished untying the bundle, then raised tiny Felina
up, holding her under her arms, raising her high above his head. Her head
lolled to one side, lifeless, and like Jack the Greater, blood flowed freely
from her eyes and ears and nose and mouth. “ShadowLord,”
the Kull shouted, “look at your triumph.”

Morgin leaned forward in the saddle, and with rage
coursing through his soul he was about to spur Mortiss forward and be damned
with the consequences, but beside him Jerst held out an arm, blocking him. “No.
You’ll just waste your own life.”

Morgin couldn’t stop tears from streaming
down his face, and on a sudden impulse slid out of the saddle and dropped to
the ground beside Mortiss. He grabbed his bow, had it strung in an instant and
reached for an arrow, but Jack the Lesser put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s
too far. They know the range of our bows, and they’re standing
just beyond it.”

“ShadowLord,” the Kull cawed,
still holding Felina’s corpse high for them all to see. “My
king has a message for you. If you live among the whitefaces, they will pay
your rent in lives.” He shook Felina’s lifeless body.
“And this is the first of many payments. If you live among
peasants, they will pay your rent in lives. Wherever you live, someone will pay
your rent in lives.”

Morgin shut his eyes and tried to tune out the braying
sound of the Kull’s boast. Valso would never allow him peace. With
everyone thinking him dead, he’d thought he might find harmony in
anonymity among the Benesh’ere. Somehow, Valso had known.

The voices in the steel around him, the voices in the
swords and arrowheads did bring him a kind of peace. As he soothed them, as he
taught each piece of steel to speak with a single voice, it brought him some
peace in return. He listened to them now, hoping to find a greater peace, but
instead he found the same determination he saw on the faces of the Benesh’ere.
And too, he found a confidence the whitefaces did not have, a belief that no
exile could limit the steel. He still held his bow with one arrow nocked, and he
focused on that one, single warhead, and when he heard its message he raised
the bow, drew back the string, and fired the arrow into the air. Only then did
he open his eyes.

He’d fired the arrow so quickly he’d
startled his Benesh’ere friends. Jack the Lesser looked at him and
shook his head. “A waste of a good arrow,” he said.

Morgin smiled and simply said, “I asked the
steel to help.”

Jack and several of them heard him, and their eyes widened
as they turned to look hopefully at the arrow arcing high over the ford. The
Kull lieutenant saw the arrow also, and crowed with increased laughter. The
arrow reached the zenith of its arc, then started its slow descent downward. But
even long before it reached the ground, all there saw that it would fall thirty
or forty paces short, and the anticipation on the faces of the Benesh’ere
died. But just as it reached the same height as the Kull seated atop his mount,
it turned unnaturally, and streaked a flat, level trajectory above the ground. The
Kull lieutenant, still crowing with laughter, still holding Felina high, looked
down just as it punched into his eye and out the back of his head.

Morgin pulled another arrow from his quiver, nocked it,
raised his bow, pulled and fired. In rapid succession he nocked, pulled and
fired five more arrows, each time picking out a specific Kull and asking the
steel warhead in the arrow to strike true. As the six arrows arced out over the
ford, no one but Morgin yet realized the Kull lieutenant was a dead man. Not
until he wavered in the saddled, dropped poor Felina’s lifeless
body to the ground, then tumbled to the ground himself, not until that moment
did any of them realize the steel had obeyed the SteelMaster. There came a
moment of utter stillness, surprise and silence from them all, then the six
arrows punched into the eyes of six more Kulls.

The remaining Kulls panicked, tried to rein their horses
about, but they were too tightly packed to do so quickly. Morgin started firing
arrows, one after the other, asking the steel warhead in each to give him the
boon of a Kull death. He drew and fired until no arrows remained in his quiver,
looked dumbly at his empty hand for a moment after he’d reached
for an arrow that wasn’t there. But at that moment Jerst placed an
arrow in his hand.

He continued to fire arrows until the last Kull
disappeared around a bend in the road on the other side of the ford, though he
noticed, interestingly enough, that the arrows didn’t hesitate to
follow the Kulls around the bend. Of the three twelves the Kull lieutenant had
brought with him, six halfmen lay dead back on the road where Mortiss had
killed them, and another twenty lay dead on the opposite shore of the ford.

Dusk had settled over the land as Morgin unstrung his bow,
wrapped it in its oilcloth case, and then tied it to his saddle. He looked at
Baldrak and said, “I’ll go fetch Felina’s
body. We won’t leave her for the crows.”

He took Mortiss’ reins and walked her across
the ford, feeling no need for any great hurry, and wanting to delay the moment
when he must look upon the young girl’s body. Mortiss picked her
way between the bodies of the Kulls he’d killed, and among them
lay Felina where she’d been dropped. She lay sprawled with her
limbs at an odd angle, her body desiccated and shriveled much as Jack the
Greater’s had been.

Morgin bent over her and straightened her arms and legs
carefully. He glanced about for something in which to wrap her, but he’d
saddled Mortiss hastily, hadn’t bothered with saddlebags or a
blanket. And the only alternative was one of the cloaks of the dead Kulls
strewn about the riverbank. He would not bring Felina home wrapped in a Kull
cloak, so he stood and pulled off his sand-colored, Benesh’ere
robe. Knee length, it would provide a good burial shroud for the child.