Wizardborn (34 page)

The men prepared for their charge, and someone blew a torn. The force horses surged across the field.

By the time the reaver scouts saw danger approach, and reacted by skittering backward, the lancers took them.

The archers raced within a hundred yards of the reavers' lines.

Blade-bearers leapt forward, turning themselves into living shields as they sought to preserve their sorceress.

Arrows sped from steel bows, riddling the fell mage and those that sought to protect her. She lurched backward a pace, died as she bowled against the reavers behind.

For their part, the reavers in the main rank reacted slowly. The blade-bearers and common troops backed away and stood waving their forearms and weapons, but held their line, having no other command before them. Far more dangerous were the blade-bearers well behind the lines.

They began hurling stones in a deadly hail.

Gaborn's archers and lancers all wheeled their mounts and galloped away from the front. Rocks hurtled from the sky. Even though the reavers threw blindly, some stones struck home.

Half a dozen archers died outright.

A boulder struck a knight of Heredon nearly two hundred yards from the reavers' front. The stone slammed into his shoulder and knocked him from his horse.

For a heart-stopping second, Averan imagined that he was dead. But he crawled to his feet and staggered up, right arm hanging limp. In the fall he must have injured his hip, for he barely managed to stand. He looked about on the ground briefly, as if he'd lost something but could not recall what, then grabbed his bow.

His horse had run ahead. The archer limped for cover, using his bow as a crutch.

Around Averan, hard-faced Runelords clenched their weapons, steeled themselves for a charge.

But Averan knew that there would be no charge.

Blood on Stone's successor wasn't here. Less than a
tenth of the reavers had made a stand. Her successor was fleeing with the main body of the horde.

Even as Averan watched, the blade-bearers turned to Blood on Stone's corpse and began to pry at the sweet triangle on her skull. The bony plates ripped open, and the reavers tore out her precious brains, while others sought the glands beneath her legs.

The knight of Heredon limped back to safety, heading straight for Gaborn. When he reached his own lines, Averan saw his face. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth, and he gasped for every breath. His face was leached as white as linen.

“Sir Hoswell!” Iome said.

Some warriors helped Sir Hoswell to the ground, shouting that his lungs were burst. They laid him on a blanket. Iome got down from her own mount and held his hand. Myrrima rode back from the charge, and had retrieved his horse. Now she sat in the saddle, staring down at him.

At Averan's back, Binnesman climbed from the saddle, knelt over the dying man. He reached into his pocket, pulled out an herb.

“Chew this,” Binnesman said. “It will make your passing easier.”

But Hoswell shook his head, refusing the herb. “I'm sorry,” Hoswell said between gasping breaths. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry!”

His back arched, and he stared up at Myrrima.

“It's all right,” Iome said. “You served well. You've nothing to be sorry for.”

Sir Hoswell gasped and coughed up some red flecks. He held his bow up, offered it to Myrrima. “Take it. It's the finest in Heredon.”

Averan had never seen a bow like it. Hoswell held it at arm's length. The wings of the bow were forged from Heredon's famed spring steel, but rather than a simple wide band of steel, this bow was made of a long, narrow piece. Many steel bows were short, the better for firing from horseback. But this was two-thirds the length of a longbow.
The belly of the bow had a wooden handle bolted through it, ornately carved from oak, and the tips where the bow was strung were capped with similar pieces of oak.

Myrrima reached out hesitantly and took the bow. She did not seem glad, nor did she smile. She stared evenly at the dying knight.

Sir Hoswell began to cough, and blood foamed out of him. Averan turned away.

Beside Averan, Baron Waggit sat on his mount. He had not participated in the charge, had held back with Averan, Binnesman, and Gaborn's Days. He choked back a sob, and Averan glanced up at him.

She saw horror naked in his eyes. “He—he's dying? Forever?”

She'd never seen that expression in the face of a man before. She remembered years ago, when her own mother had died, and Brand had come and held her tenderly and told her what had happened. He'd warned her then that it happened to everyone, that there was no escape.

She'd felt that terror then.

She suddenly realized that in some ways, she was older than Waggit. She'd learned about death long ago, as a girl of three. But Waggit had always been incapable of comprehending that death was the end, inescapable and interminable. Lucky Waggit.

“I'm afraid so,” Binnesman said softly, trying to comfort the young man.

Waggit shook his head, as if he could not accept it.

A cheer erupted from Gaborn's knights.

At first Averan thought they cheered Hoswell, but the cheer had erupted everywhere at once.

She looked across the battlefield.

The reaver horde was turning. The great monsters loped away in their strange rocking gait, running south. Even as they did, there was a subtle change. They formed into seven columns, with mages taking the center.

The warriors around Averan began to mutter. They'd
never seen reavers march that way. Averan could remember nothing like it even in reaver experience.

Averan felt uneasy. The reavers had begun changing tactics, adjusting, she knew that reavers were clever creatures—perhaps even smarter than men. The moment seemed ominous.

Gaborn's own warriors turned their mounts, heading away from the battlefield. Binnesman got back on his horse, behind Averan, and for a moment they rode in silence.

Gaborn gave Averan a sideways glance. He smiled. “Congratulations,” he said. “We have our second victory, and in great part we owe it to you.”

It felt gruesome to get such a commendation now, with dead men at their backs.

“I think I shall promote you,” Gaborn said. “Let it be known that Skyrider Averan is now a chancellor to the king.”

It was supposed to be a huge honor. As chancellor, she would be called upon to advise the king whenever he asked. At the age of nine, she was probably the youngest person ever bestowed the title. Averan should have been thrilled.

But she felt confused. The honor seemed hollow.

Averan looked at the fleeing reavers, at knights cheering in the battle line. Then she looked back out over the golden plains beneath the blue bowl of heaven, where reavers lay in mounds like gray stones.

She felt sad.

She realized belatedly that she did not care for a title. It was an honor that a man bestowed upon men, and she felt as if she were separating from mankind. Her calling was to serve the Earth.

   27   

The flame lizard of Djeban takes its name from the frill at its throat When expanded, the crimson frill makes the lizard appear larger and more terrifying than it is, and the bright red patches beneath the jaw look very much as if it has been feeding on the blood of its enemies. By night, the same frill can be made to fluoresce briefly, creating the illusion of a flickering fire.

In the early spring, males will display their frills nightly for the females, rivaling for attention. Hence each evening Djeban appears to catch fire.

In Inkarra the flame lizards are used like guard dogs, and called “draktferions,” which means “watchfires.” In Mystarria their name was shortened to “drakens.” In northern Rofehavan that name was changed to <(dragons.”

—
Excerpt from Binnesman's Bestiary:
Reptiles of the World

For a long time after the baobab tree, Raj Ahten found no water. He raced his camels across the Wastes, sparing nothing in his attempt to catch up to Wuqaz.

There was sand, and more sand, and still sand, and sand piled upon the piled sand. That is how one described the Wastes.

Nothing crawled upon it but a few beetles and small web-footed geckos. All of the lizards had sand-colored backs to hide from predators and white bellies to reflect the desert sun. A few blind shrews lived beneath the sand and
came out at night to hunt for scorpions, but there was little else.

Overhead, large sand-colored desert graaks flew in circles, a mile into the air, watching everything that moved. It was not uncommon for the monsters to swoop low and knock a man off his camel, leaving him to die as the camel raced for safety. But the graaks would not dare attack a party as large as this.

The camels had good runes of brawn, stamina, and metabolism burned into their flesh, but Raj Ahten soon grew to suspect that some of their Dedicate camels had died. One camel sat down halfway across the Waste, and would not get up, even when jabbed with a sharp camel prod.

Raj Ahten had no choice but to leave his man there until the camel felt ready to travel again. The invincible drew his warhammer and stood over his mount protectively, watching the sky for graaks.

The vast bed of the White Sea was dry at this time of year, except for a few miles where the water ran little deeper than a camel's ankles. The receding sea left a salty crust that crunched under the camels' feet with every step. The wind sweeping across the dry lakebed whipped bits of salt into the eyes of men and camels alike.

Raj Ahten wrapped a rag around his face, and was happy to reach the waters of the White Sea, so named because of the white crust all along its shore. The sparkling amethyst waters were shallow and too salty to drink. But the presence of any water was welcome. No more salt crystals whipped through the air here, and the journey was safe, if slow. Giant crocodiles infested the eastern shores of this inland sea, but here in the west it was too salty even for them.

As the mounts waded through miles of water, Raj Ahten spotted
obbatas
far in the distance—tall desert tribesmen on their ugly black camels. Whole families would ride together on one of the beasts, and the riders were as strange as their mounts, for the men and women wore little clothing. Instead, their shamans tattooed runes of water binding on the obbatas' lower lips to protect them from the blistering
sun. Yet such runes had undesirable effects. They closed the pores on the tribesmen's lustrous black skin, leaving it colorless and flaky, as if covered in scales. Their fingernails and toenails became as dull as flint, while the whites of their eyes turned gray. In the south, in Umarish, the obbata tribesmen were called the “crocodile people,” for they no longer looked human.

Whole tribes of obbatas were riding north, the sun flashing on the silver blades of their spears. Raj Ahten took their migration as a foreboding. The reticent obbatas seldom traveled by day, yet now myriads of them were driving their monstrous camels across the shallow White Sea.

They are fleeing, he realized. Could they have heard of the reaver invasion so far away?