The Irda (23 page)

What was left of the city around him was sad. The crude, half-standing stone walls gave the impression that they had never stood straight and strong as intended. Perhaps they had been broken and leaning, even when new.

Lyrralt walked through the fallen rock, the piles of dust and rubble and wondered who had lived in the place, and why. There was something about it that reminded him of Bloten. Humans attempting to build an Ogre city? It made no sense. Humans were savages who eked their lives out of the plains. They barely had civilization. Or had they built their own cities and roads, before the Ogres had discovered their usefulness as animals of burden, of hard work?

He was standing on the highest place in the ruin, a small portion of a wall that ran along a ridge, when the rain began.

At first, the downpour was so heavy that it seemed like stars falling from the sky! Burning stars! Stars trailing fiery tails.

The first one hit, not far out on the plains, as he’d thought it would, but nearby, just feet from the sheer drop of the ledge. It was a rain of fire! Pebbles and dirt and rainbow flame exploded upward!

He looked up into the sky and saw more, thousands more fiery spots of light, trailing downward. He shouted a wordless warning to those several feet below him, poking through the ruins. As he pointed, more balls of light hit, sending up gouts of flame.

One of the older cousins of Igraine’s clan was standing nearby. A spout of fire curled up and slapped him down. He said, “It’s cold,” in an unsurprised voice. Then his flesh began to melt, like wax dripping from a candle, and the sound that came from him was an ululation of pain and despair.

As the Ogre fell, a dark, fused mass of flesh and bone, the real horror began. Great balls of the light, feet apart, inches apart, came down! Coldfire it was, sent from the heavens by the gods. Wherever it touched, it burned without flame, burned cold, but with a heat more intense than anything Lyrralt had ever experienced.

Lyrralt leapt down from the wall, landed on the side of his foot, and rolled on the hard ground. He came to his feet running. Where was Igraine? He had to find Igraine.

Another Ogre was hit by the coldfire, and another: Haleyn, who made such beautiful music with his flute, and Issil, who supervised the carrying of live coals from camp to camp, always making sure the Ogres had continued warmth.

One of the children of Igraine’s clan, the noisy one, fell. His sister screamed and grabbed him as the fiery ball crashed onto his back, and she, too, was consumed. And Celise, Jelindra’s mother, also died shrieking.

He saw Tenaj run, dodging the fiery explosions, dragging two of the children away before they could touch the melted body of their father and become part of his boiling flesh.

He stopped, looked about wildly, and ran again. As he ran, Ogres died all around him. But none of the deadly fire came near enough to touch him. He looked up at the sky. This was no attack of humans or Ogres! No attack even of any kind of magic he recognized.

Reaching inside his tunic, Lyrralt grabbed the medallion that hung around his neck and yanked it so hard that the chain cut into his skin and broke. He clasped it between his palms and shouted—sang!— screamed!—a prayer to the heavens. “Mighty Hid-dukel, Great Goddess Takhisis, why have you spared me? So that I might observe death all around me? Have mercy on your children! Show forgiveness and spare us—!”

The silver disc that bore the etched symbol of his god heated up so that he flung it away without thinking. The disc sailed up as he gasped, realizing what he had done.

He grabbed at it. But it exploded. Many-hued brightness erupted, searing his eyes and etching a line like a jagged glyph down his face from eyebrow to chin. He felt the runes on his arms writhe and burn even hotter than the metal.

He screamed and fell back, away from the unbearable pain, trying to escape the agony of his burning flesh. He tore the sleeve from his robe, scraped at his arms, his face.

The pain ended as suddenly as it had begun. The last thing he saw, before darkness overcame him, was the skin of his left arm, unmarked and dark indigo, as unblemished as the day he’d first appeared before his first clerical master.

A peacefulness came over him, covered him like a blanket, like nothing he’d ever known.
This is what it is to die
, he thought.
This quiet, this dark . . .

Tenaj and Igraine found him. The fiery rain of stars had ended. The fire of the gods had left no wounded, only melted lumps of flesh, no longer recognizable as Ogres.

Lyrralt was sitting, his back against a broken wall of stone, legs crossed comfortably, his hands clasping his unmarked forearms.

His face, his beautiful, finely chiseled face, bore a craggy scar that began at his hairline, dipped to his heavy eyebrows, zagged across his high cheekbone, back across his cheek, and disappeared underneath his chin. It looked like a thunderbolt, molded of silver as bright as the color of his eyes. Except that his eyes were no longer bright silver. They were a shining, opalescent white with no sign of any pupils at all.

“Lyrralt?” Tenaj kneeled beside him, afraid almost to breathe his name, for fear that he would start to scream. Or that she would.

“Lyrralt, are you . . .” What she meant to ask seemed a stupid thing to inquire, with his face disfigured and his eyes so strange.

For a moment, Lyrralt continued to stare, then he stirred, slowly straightening. He reached out, obviously for her hand, but not in the right place.

Igraine took his hand tightly. Tenaj reached across and placed her palm on their joined hands.

Lyrralt fumbled for the linked hands and felt first her fingers, then Igraine’s beneath them. He said softly, “I can’t see you.” And he smiled.

Thee cool, crisp mountain air felt like home After the alien heat of the plains. Tree branches hung low overhead. The damp, welcoming scent of decay permeated the mulch underfoot.

Jyrbian rode in silence, as he had for days, drawing the scent of rot, the humidity, into his lungs. His despair rode with him.

Khallayne was sullen and withdrawn. Kaede was, for the moment, wise enough to remain silent, for Jyrbian’s thoughts were not kind.

The bloodstone seemed warm in his pocket, as if he could feel it against his hip through the layers of cloth. He could still envision it, lying against the smoothness of her throat, the polished black surface of rock, the red veins pulsing through it, pulsing, though blood no longer pulsed in her veins.

Did her human lover know that she was dead? His mouth curled. His fingers clenched into fists; the leather of his reins cut into his palm. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to pound his fists on something until his hands were numb, until his fingertips could not remember the sweet sensation of smooth flesh beneath them.

His horse nickered softly and danced sideways, almost unseating him. He pulled at the reins and tightened his grip on the animal.

“Jyrbian.”

He glanced back at Kaede irritably, still tugging as his horse pranced. He saw that her horse, too, was misbehaving, throwing its head up and down.

Immediately alert, Jyrbian signaled for silence. Dismounting, he soothed his mount with gentle hands, then checked his sword, easing it a hand’s length in and out of the scabbard twice, just to make sure it was ready to do his bidding. Holding firmly to the reins, keeping the horse’s head down, he eased along the trail. With a stealth that spoke of experience, Kaede slid to the ground and followed, leading Jelindra.

Khallayne slid to the ground, too. They knew, as long as Kaede held Jelindra in her thrall, that she would follow them.

The woods had become silent. Gone was the chit-ter of birds and the rustle of small animals in the undergrowth. The cool, leaf-shaped shadows had become menacing.

Beside the trail, Kaede discovered what was making the horses so restive. Dumped carelessly between the roots of a huge, old tree were what was left of two Ogre guards, a male and a female, wearing uniforms that had probably once been the immaculate white-and-red of the Dalle Clan. The cloth was so stained with blood and dirt, coated with dead leaves and twigs, that it was difficult to know for sure. It seemed as if they had been hacked and battered to death, the bodies dragged off the trail and left for the animals.

“No attempt to hide the bodies,” Jyrbian whispered, sliding close to Kaede so that his lips barely made a sound. “Whoever did this didn’t care who discovered the evidence.”

“Humans!” The word was a hiss, a warning, a curse. Kaede turned away, one hand on her sword hilt, one on her stomach as if she were sick.

Jyrbian knew, however, that she actually clutched the dagger she wore tucked in her belt, hidden beneath the folds of her tunic. He backed carefully away from the bodies and back onto the hard ground of the trail, careful to make as little noise as possible among the leaves and dead twigs.

They were west of Thorad by at least two day’s ride. If he remembered correctly, the trail forked ahead, heading east down into a valley and west up into the mountains, bypassing the city. Intuition told him the humans would be to the east, on the more passable trail. Food would be easier to find, and so would prey.

He grinned at Kaede. “Shall we see what lies ahead?”

He glanced back. Khallayne was on foot, leading her stallion, staring at the two guards’ bodies with dread fascination. Jelindra was still mounted, staring off into space.

“Can you make her watch the horses?” Jyrbian gestured toward the trees on the opposite side of the trail.

They were very near where the trail came out on a low ridge overlooking the valley.

Kaede spoke for a moment with Jelindra, words Khallayne couldn’t hear, and then left her holding the horses. “Shell be all right,” Kaede assured Jyrbian.

Crouched low, hidden by scrubby plants and rough, sharp-edged boulders, Jyrbian and Kaede edged through the sparse woods, out to the ridge overlooking the valley. Khallayne followed.

Just clear of the shadows of the forest, where the trail ran along a rocky ridge that circled the valley below, Jyrbian paused, lay down on his belly, and crept to the edge of the crest, keeping his head low.

A troop of Ogres was camped in the curve of a gurgling stream. The camp was orderly. Bedrolls of four to five warriors were laid out neatly around campfires that ringed the field tent. The Ogres were busy cooking. They stood out in the green field, wearing the red-and-white silks of Clan Dalle.

Jyrbian made a sound of disgust. They might as well be painted with targets.

Kaede sidled up beside him, shushed him, and pointed toward the slope to their left.

There, among the thin forest that marched down the hillside, was flitting movement!

Silent shadows weaved in and out among the trees, working their way down to hiding places among the shrubs at the water’s edge.

Whoever commanded the company, whoever had chosen such a vulnerable place to camp, deserved to die, to be gutted and left for carrion birds! Unless the approaching humans made noise, they would be upon the guards on two sides of the camp before an alarm was raised.

Kaede tensed, ready to rise and warn her compatriots of the approaching danger. Her sword was already half drawn when Jyrbian grabbed her.

She yanked free of his grasp. “They’ll be slaughtered!”

“Wait! Think!” He held her arm. “If you shout now, the humans will melt back into the forest. And we’ll be alone up here with them.”

“So what do we do?”

Jyrbian grinned, a crooked, thin-lipped expression that made his eyes look as hard as granite. “We go down.”

Before she could question him, stop him, he melted back into the shadows.

A moment later, he came crashing past, mounted.

Kaede stared up at him as if he were crazy, then leapt to her feet and followed. Khallayne hesitated a moment.

As Jyrbian reached the edge of the ridge, he drew his sword and held it high over his head. The blade threw out glinting red highlights from the evening sun as he forced his horse to leap down the slope.

The ground was a mixture of dark soil and creek-side sand, cut through with gullies of rainwater. The slope was steep, and his horse went down at an angle, sliding, running, falling.

As he reached the level ground, Jyrbian tugged viciously at the reins and sent his horse careening along the edge of the stream, toward the tree line. As he flew past, he noted dark-skinned faces with silver eyes open wide with surprise.

“Humans on your flank!” he shouted. He tore into the woods, into the nearest concentration of humans, and flailed about with his sword. He hit one on the side of the head with the flat of his blade and felt another taste its sharp edge.

The humans had to stand and fight, exposing their positions to the Ogre company.

Jyrbian wheeled his horse among the trees, slashed at a human with a wooden pike, then wheeled back to meet another with a sword. His steel blade sang against inferior metal. He felt as near to ecstasy as could be.

He realized the overwhelming numbers, saw his own death if the sluggish company of Ogres did not respond, then raised his voice in the first, terrible notes of a battle song, a death song.

His foot landed squarely on the chest of a human woman and echoed with a thud and crack. The human emitted a gurgle and fell back. His sword made a welcome whir in the air as he wheeled to meet the next attacker.

Then Kaede was coming to his aid, leading Jelin-dra into the battle, their horses sending up a spray of sand and pebbles. Her cry of attack made the hair on the back of his neck stand on edge. At last, the Ogres responded to Kaede’s battle cry, ran for their weapons, and rushed across the stream to join in the attack.

Jyrbian allowed the first of them to sweep by him, then met the next handful of charging warriors, blocking their path. “That way,” he commanded, pointing with his bloody sword. “Into the woods. Flank them.”

If there was any hesitation on their part to follow the orders of a complete stranger, he didn’t see it. Swords waving, they raced up the hill as he had directed, meeting further waves of humans in the woods.