Wine of the Gods 03: The Black Goats (19 page)

Oscar looked up, and as the goat lowered its head to charge the Lieutenant, he loosed his bolt.

Byson snapped around at the snap of the bowstring, leaping out of the way as the goat tumbled passed him and collapsed. "What the  . . . where did that come from? What are you doing shooting goats?"

Bran darted forward and rolled the carcass. "Look, sir." The goat had a human hand in the place of its right front foot.

Byson snapped his mouth shu
t and swallowed. "It seems the general was right about, umm, uncanny . . .  Old Gods! All right, since you two can see these things, you lead off."

Bran marked more bolts and foreheads. And swords. But only Oscar spotted the second goat, and it was gone before he could aim.

They skulked about for an hour before the rumble of hooves warned them of approaching horses. The duke was leading his troops in a ragged retreat. They had obviously been in a battle, blood was flowing and there was little order to the column. They numbered perhaps twenty.

"Take down the d
uke's horse as soon as he's opposite those two rocks." Byson ordered two troops. "You two keep your eyes open for uncanny anythings and shoot them. The rest, take down the riders."

Oscar looked out at the a
pproaching mass of riders. The duke had a spare horse running beside his . . . or did he?

"Bran, the horse beside the Duke, is there anyone riding it?"

Bran paled suddenly. "That's
him
." He suddenly clutched his crotch.

"What?"

"The one that, the one that . . . owns me." He dropped his crossbow and curled up in pain.

"Oh crap." As the other crossbows started thwapping, he stood up, took careful aim and shot for the empty space above the running horse. Bran screamed, then pulled his sword and turned toward Oscar, sweating. Stopping. Sweating. Dropping the sword. Then he suddenly took a deep breath, grabbed the sword and turned to the melee. Oscar kept one eye on him, while he cocked and reloaded his
crossbow. He shot a man in the duke's livery that veered toward Bran, then drew his own sword. But Lieutenant Byson had the duke at sword point and the remaining men dropped their weapons.

Bran stabbed the bare ground. Pulled back and swung and chopped, and suddenly they could all see the man, sprawling dead on the ground. Oscar reached down and stripped a bandage off the man's right hand.
He recoiled from the hoof. The duke's men were as horrified as the King's. Even Duke Rivolte shuddered and turned his head away.

More rid
ers approaching proved to be Colonel Rufi. He stared grimly down at the body, then turned his gaze to the duke. "Seems you've been keeping interesting company, Rivolte."

They packed the two goat-men in salt and headed for the City.

***

Dydit slept in as late as he could stand. Later. The brisk knock was followed by Nil's entry. "I locked that door."

"Yes, I noticed that when I unlocked it. Don't you want to come down and see your horse?"

"No. Go away."

The king clicked his tongue reprovingly, and left.

Dydit pulled the covers over his head. Couldn't stand it. That beautiful spell. Boxes. The wizard king could teach him so much. Must teach him.

He dressed and walked out to the stable behind the Inn.

Nil was opening a bottle of wine. "Decided we'd probably need a pack horse so I bought two of them." He nodded at the end stalls.

"What? These wrecks?" The two mares were ancient old nags. The bay had a delicate dished face and a thin blaze. Once upon a time she'd been a valuable animal. The other mare was a bit coarser, but long legged, and even more run down. "Where's your horse."

"That Chocolate fellow behind you."

Dydit turned. "Now that's more like it." The big brown stallion was fit and strong. Not a particularly good head, but the legs couldn't be faulted. He looked like what nobles called a heavy hunter, or the cavalry called a medium warhorse. Tending towa
rds heavy, actually. Up to Nihility's size and weight. He glanced at the old wizard. Very tall, six and a half feet, strong in a lean sort of fashion. Dydit was only three inches shorter and outweighed him. He wasn't fool enough to think he'd have any advantage over him in a fight.

Nil pulled the cork and poured a quarter of the bottle in each mare's empty water bucket.

The mares sniffed, then sucked it down, as Nil recorked the bottle and walked out of the barn. Dydit turned to follow him, then stuck his heels in stubbornly. "I'm not your dog to follow at your heels," he muttered. "I'm not." Crossing his arms and hunching his shoulders.

A deep nicker from the stallion, made him turn around. The horse was pressed against the stall bars, his attention on the old mares.

The bay gave a little shriek and tossed her head and danced around her stall.

Dydit rubbed his eyes and looked again. The coat he'd thought was dull was gleaming. And the mare certainly didn't look decrepit. The dun mare shook herself, and hair flew. She was pretty shiny under the shed hair as well.

The stallion grunted at them, and they both flirted their tails at him, squealing.

An old man came trotting down the aisle.

"You Mister Danger's friend? The one he bought those old nags for?"

"Yes, but you know, he just gave them a tonic, and . . . " he jerked his chin at the mares.

The hostler peered, then leaned in and looked at first one mare and then the other. "What in Ba'al's name was in that tonic?"

"Ba'al?" Dydit felt a stirring in his loins.

"Got to be some damn devil's work." The hostler spit.

"Ah," Dydit relaxed. "I was afraid you might be a worshipper."

He got a dirty look. The hostler reached in and ran a finger around the bay mare's pail, then licked his finger. "Wine. Herbs of some sort I 'spect. Hmph." He gave the mares another look, then squirming a bit, hitching at his britches, strode back toward the stairs to the loft, where he most likely had his quarters.

Over the mares' and
the stallion's conversation, Dydit heard an surprised female exclamation from upstairs, and then some rhythmic thumping.

Dydit ran his finger around the dun mare's bucket and licked his finger. Wine and some herbs. Oh gods, among other things a
powerful
aphrodisiac. Hoowah! He wondered if the Hostler wanted to share.

The stallion pranced in place and grunted at the mares.

"Ha! You want them? Serve you right!"
And irritate the hell out of Nil.

There was no sign of the hostler, but plenty of thumping still going on upstairs. Dydit looked out the back of the stable. The small corral was empty. He snickered, and put first the mares (sniffing and shoving at him) and the stallion (dragging him eagerly) out there.

Dydit played innocent the next morning, when they rode out. The stallion was practically dragging.

Nil had just snorted and saddled up anyway.

"Why didn't you get geldings, and avoid this mess?" Dydit asked.

"As you well know, nads can grow back." The wizard shot an evil grin over his shoulder at Dydit. "Although three stallions might be less trouble than a stallion and two mares."

"They'll be out of season in a few days, right?" The dun mare kept crowding up closer to the stallion. Dydit had the bay mare on a lead line, and she was just as fixated on the brown stallion. She spent most of her time trying to push past Dun.

By noon the horses had settled down, and keeping the stallion tied away from the mares, they stopped for lunch then continued.

That night the mares worked their way loose. Fortunately the stallion stayed tied, so they didn't have to chase them down.

The third day the potion wore off, or at any rate the mares went out of season and the stallion relaxed after getting kicked a couple of times.

It increased the mileage covered for energy expended amazingly.

***

With the retreat of the snow in the mountains, Never figured it was time to seriously explore the expansion of her abilities. With Rustle in a sling, a shovel, and enough food for a week in her pack, Never headed for the Gray Valley.

The old eroding volcanic plugs were rich in diamonds, and in theory she should now be able to sense the density differences in the sediments and pick out the diamonds. As with most things it was harder in practice than theory. Mostly it was hard to tell how far away the diamonds were. She dug plenty of holes, only to sense the diamond still down there, somewhere.

And sand and dirt and hard labor didn't combine well with the care and nursing of a growing baby. Not that Rustle was fussy or demanding, but she was four months old and she wanted, needed, her mother to talk and sing and play with her, encourage her as she rolled and tried to figure out how to crawl.

Never sorted hastily through her last shovel full of sand and gravel. "I'll be right there, Rustle. That wretched little diamond is in here somewhere. And then I can clean up for the day and spend all evening playing . . . I know, I know, you're hungry. Ah ha! There you are you little . . . Look, sweetie! A nice sized one. Wrap it in paper and drop it in my unfortunately small pouch and look! I'm washing up and dinner is on the way." Despite her babble, the baby was getting louder and more insistent. But the sand was off enough to feed her.

"Because you see, sweet heart, however nice the fabrics we make, and however much we charge rich duchesses for fancy embroidery, the bulk of our funds come from diamond mining. And we need the money for necessities like chocolate, iron
, and salt."

Rustle was happy with either the explanation or the sustenance. Never took a quick dip in the chilly stream, and laid in the bright sun warming up while playing peek-a-boo with her daughter. Life, while occasionally dirty or cold, was very good.

***

Earthquakes
hundreds of years ago had thoroughly rearranged the Old Road of the South. More modern, that is to say recently enough that they had an actual written record of the work, construction had stitched the longer sections together into a snaky but generally passable road across the rolling plains and into the Southern Divide. They passed several merchant trains, getting a good looking over by the guards in each, but being allowed to pass them, rather than filled with arrows.

Dydit couldn't feel the old man doing anything. It was rather spooky.

A town at the foot of the mountains replenished their trail supplies and supplied warnings about the Auralian raids on the road.

Dydit grumbled and complained. "Am I going to have to change my name to Thricecutt?"

The old man had thought that was quite funny. Dydit supposed that if he'd been on the other end of the knife he would have thought it was funny too.

These southern mountains weren't as tall as the ones near Ash, but were substantial enough. Almost a thousand miles of rough terrain. On the plus side, the Old Road was intact through them, which was why the route was so often traveled. They were passing a wagon train that was headed west on a long gradual climb, rough hillside climbing steeply to their right and dropping steeply to their left when the arrow took the driver of the first wagon in the neck.

Nil gave a flick of his wrist and Dydit flinched as an arrow bounced off of solid sunshine about an inch from his eye, and then screaming warriors were pouring down the hillside.

"Kill them," Nil snapped.

Dydit dropped the bay's lead rope and grabbed his sword, wheeling to form up on Nil who booted Choc into the middle of the charge.

Despite the screaming, the Auralians had fair discipline, keeping a line, and with groups assigned tasks. A pair of axe wielders were obviously designated to immobilize the wagons. Nil ignored them and hit the center of the charge, using his horse as a weapon, deflecting the Auralians traditional hooked halberds with his sword and trampling the bearers.

Except the stupid horse jumped over a man he'd knocked flat, and Nil cursed and vaulted off.
Not a trained warhorse.

Dydit wished he had a longer weapon as he leaned and chopped, and finding himself spending more time protecting the horse than inflicting injury, he spun her out of the melee and jumped off. He went after the ax men, ducking a swing and lunging as if he had a rapier. Against the unarmored Auralian it was effective, and he jerked the sword loose. Realizing that this just wasn't the way he was meant to fight, he dropped down the hill, away from the battle, out of sight, pulling off clothing as fast as he could.

When he charged back up the hill it was a whole different story. He dropped his horns and rammed an Auralian from the rear, twisted away from a sword, and slashed a belly open. Parried a thrust,  then broke a kneecap. Ran a single horn through another Auralian, front to back, chased a fleeing warrior and tossed him down the hill. The next man knew how to use his halberd, catching a horn, but Dydit twisted and slammed his body against the man, knocking them both down the hill. He was loose when they hit the road and he twisted his head and stabbed one horn under the breastbone and up into the heart. He jerked loose and looked around for more. There weren't any. Nil had a
pile
around him. A rattle from up the hill showed where the few survivors had gone, and he charged halfway up the ridge and then slowed and started stalking them.