Wizardborn (35 page)

The portent was chilling.

By early afternoon, he and his men had gained on the twelve Ah'kellah. He saw them in the distance from atop his camel, not ten miles off, and silently pleaded to the Powers, “Let Wuqaz be among them.”

Raj Ahten's endowments let him spy the men as they prodded the camels up the high plateaus, toward the ancient ruins beneath the mountains at Djeban. The Ah'kellah rode with their backs to him, and Raj Ahten could not see if Wuqaz rode with them.

Raj Ahten, clutching his reins in his numb left hand, rode on.

Djeban, the “City of Lizards,” lay quiet as a crypt when he reached it. All along the cliffs above the city, statues of men with the heads of hawks stood poised, gazing with dead eyes.

No sparrow peeped in the thickets; no hawk wheeled in the sky. But upon every large stone crouched huge carnivorous flame lizards that hissed and fanned the bright red frills beneath their throats in warning as Raj Ahten's men drew near.

Raj Ahten could smell his quarry strongly now. The men had stopped to water their camels at the first stream they crossed. Not far ahead was a hill, and beyond it a lush
valley where the grass kept green throughout most of the year. Raj Ahten knew it well from previous journeys. The warriors would be feeding their camels there. Raj Ahten tasted for the scent of Wuqaz, but could not find it. There was a trace … of someone who might be Wuqaz. With so many endowments of scent, Raj Ahten felt that he ought to be more certain. He hoped that the odor of the man he sought was merely masked by the smells of other warriors.

He called a halt, and Raj Ahten's hunters strung their bows. He warned, “Strike quickly, and take no prisoners.”

He had already thrown off his armor, which was the most recognizable part of his attire. Now he pulled his robe over a simple helm, rode with his face down.

“Bhopanastrat,” Raj Ahten called, “take the lead.” If the Ah'kellah realized that Raj Ahten himself was attacking, they would flee.

Raj Ahten knew that Gaborn had chosen Wuqaz and the Ah'kellah yesterday in the battle at Carris. Now he wondered at the wisdom of assailing Gaborn's Chosen warriors. He'd managed to defeat some before—but just barely. None of those men were like Wuqaz Faharaqin. That old warlord had over two hundred endowments to his credit.

The men drew out their camel prods, urged the animals on mercilessly. Raj Ahten saw blood flow on the flanks of more than one beast.

The camels snorted and raced now, their huge feet thudding on the ground with a distinctive sound. In brush and rocks the camels were of little use, and plodded along in a gangling way. But here in this terrain the creatures galloped as fast as any horse, showing that they were capable of true grace. These were force camels with endowments of brawn and metabolism.

Raj Ahten's mount topped the ridge at perhaps eighty miles per hour. He saw the dozen Ah'kellah sitting in a circle beside an oasis, cooking fry bread over a fire of dried camel dung. Their mounts were spread out along the fields, foraging on the grass.

The valley was devoid of trees and rocks, places where the Ah'kellah might seek shelter.

At the sight of Raj Ahten's men, they leapt to their feet, peered toward the hilltop in curiosity. But when they saw a dozen men with strung bows racing toward them, they knew there would be battle. One man ran for his camel, his robes flapping wildly, but the others shouted, warning him to leave it.

The twelve warriors drew sabers and warhammers. Two men quickly strung their hornbows.

By that time, Raj Ahten's men were streaming to either side, firing arrows into the cluster of mountless men.

The Ah'kellah were trapped. They had no cover. Five men took arrows almost instantly, and stood their ground with arrows bristling from chests and legs. An enemy bowman put an arrow through the eye of a camel, so that one of Raj Ahten's men went down in a sickening thud, bones crunching. Four others of the Ah'kellah raced out of the knot on either side, attacked with battle-axes and sabers, chopping at the unprotected necks and throats of passing camels.

Five camels tumbled in a spray of blood. Raj Ahten drew his warhammer and leapt from his own mount, buried a spike through the head of the first Ah'kellah he met. Another raced up at his back, and Raj Ahten spun the hammer instantly, swiping the man across the ribs with a blow that ripped out the bottoms of his lungs.

Blood spattered his face as he charged into the crowd of Ah'kellah, seeking Wuqaz. Arrows whizzed past his head, striking two more men.

None of the Ah'kellah prostrated themselves and begged for mercy, as a man of old Indhopal might have done. It was not in their nature to ask for mercy, not in their nature to give it.

He looked into the stern eyes of one old kaif who shouted, “Raj Ah—” as Raj Ahten's warhammer tore out his throat.

The Ah'kellah became a dark swirling mass as they
rushed to attack him. These were not common troops. For one heart-stopping second he imagined that Gaborn guided them.

But Raj Ahten was not to be trifled with. Even ailing from Binnesman's curse, he had his endowments.

He kicked one man in the chest with the steel toe of his boots, crushing his heart. He dodged beneath a sword, slammed the head of his battle-ax into the man's face. He drew a dagger in his numb left hand, drove it under the chin of a third attacker, leapt up and kicked a fourth man with both feet so hard that the man's head came off.

It was too easy. He did not take even a glancing blow. This fight was nothing like the brawl he'd endured yesterday, when Gaborn guided his Chosen.

In moments it was over. Raj Ahten stood panting above the corpses of the Ah'kellah. Dust was thick in the air from racing camels. The smell of blood hung over the encampment. Camels bawled in pain, lying with their legs broken or missing.

Three of his own men were dead. Another was badly wounded—his right arm shattered and most of his face caved in.

Amid this, Raj Ahten walked back over to the small campfire, where the fry bread baked in a blackened skillet. The bread was lightly toasted on top, and he could smell pistachios and cumin cooking inside.

He flipped out a piece into his hand, chewed it thoughtfully. A movement on the hill caught his eye. Flame lizards had begun to creep down from the bluffs and rocks. They'd caught the scent of blood. They'd feed well on the corpses tonight.

Wuqaz is not here, Raj Ahten realized. Wuqaz was not a man prone to mistakes. He would never have stopped at this oasis, barren of cover. Raj Ahten should have known that when he crested the hill.

The thought of Wuqaz running free worried him. It meant that he had either gone north into Deyazz, or more
likely to the western coast—to Dharmad, Jiz, or Kuhran … good places to cause trouble.

Raj Ahten had sent eighty men to ride Wuqaz down. He suspected that it would not be enough.

   28   

A reaver's sensory organs, its philia, circle the base of its skull and run beneath the jaws. Blade-bearers have been seen with as few as eighteen philia and as many as thirty-six. Whatever the number, they are always found in multiples of three.

Hearthmaster Magnus used to teach that the more philia a reaver had, the older it was. But I can see no evidence of this. By comparing the number of a reaver's philia to its apparent size and age (as measured by tooth wear), I see no correlation between the number of philia and the reaver's age.

Nor does a larger number of philia seem to convey any greater status to a reaver, as Hearthmaster Banes once surmised. Very powerful sorceresses have had relatively few philia, while small blade-bearers have been found with many.

Ultimately, the science of counting philia on a reaver in order to make any sort of deductions is pointless. It is analogous to trying to deduce whether a man is a farmer or fisherman by counting his nose hairs.

—Excerpt from
A Comparison of Reports on Reavers,
by Hearthmaster Dungiles

Gaborn turned from the fleeing reavers. They would not attack. His remaining Earth Powers let him feel confident of that much, at least.

He did not need to fear.

Nor did he need to count his dead. He'd felt the deaths
in battle: twenty-four men. Twenty-four men had fallen, and with each death, he felt as if the man were being extracted from his own flesh.

He'd tried to warn them, tried to call to them in the battle. He sought to serve the Earth in that way, and he hoped that the Earth would restore his Powers.

But he'd been unable to reach them. He'd sensed their danger, shouted his warnings, but it was like shouting at deaf men.

Iome and Myrrima held back, stayed with Hoswell for a moment. Gaborn felt eager to begin searching among the dead, hoping to find the Waymaker. His Days rode at his side.

A frowth giant roared, off to his right. Gaborn glanced at the beast. It pointed at the fleeing reavers, roared again. There was a question in its voice. It wanted to know why Gaborn was letting the reavers get away.

“The battle was a glorious victory,” the Days said. “It will be noted as such.” Gaborn had seldom heard a word of praise from the historian.

In his memory, Gaborn rehearsed what he'd done. He'd ridden the reavers' flank, sensing with his Earth Powers, until he felt the moment for the charge was perfect. Now, he could see that more than two thousand reavers lay dead. The lives of so few men were a small price to pay for such a victory.

His Days was right. It was a great conquest.

Out on the battlefield, a few warriors were wounded. He saw them limping about, bandaging themselves as best they could. Binnesman went to his wylde as she broke open the skull of a scarlet sorceress and began to feed.

Binnesman had allowed the creature to enter battle. Once the charge began, she'd leapt from her horse and run to the center of the fray, attacking the monsters bare-handed with a ferocity that was hard to credit. Gaborn had not even numbered her kills.

Now lords sat down and began to clean and sharpen their
weapons. A few scouts began making a count of their fallen foes.

Gaborn could not order a second charge immediately. He didn't have the lances for it.

When he dared consider the very notion of charging, he felt uneasy. There was a change among the reavers. He did not yet fathom it, but he knew that he would never be able to charge them so successfully again.

Binnesman began tending the wounded. Iome and Baron Waggit went with him.

Gaborn told Averan, “Come with me. Let's see if we can find the Waymaker.”

With that, he climbed down from his mount, helped the child from hers. He'd promised Averan that she would not have to eat the reaver's brains in public. So when other lords and counselors sought to follow, he waved them back.

They began to walk together through the reavers, down among the furrow. Walking into it was like stepping down into a grave. The smell of beaten soil was all around. The hulking reavers lay dead and bleeding, cutting off the light. Gree wriggled in the air above them, lit on the corpses. The small black creatures scurried about like bats, with the claws at the tips of their wings hooked into the reavers' hides. But aside from the wings, that's where the similarity to bats ended. The gree, like reavers, had four small legs in addition to their wings, and their eyeless heads had tiny philia of their own. The gree scampered about over the carcasses and scaled the dirty creases of flesh to search for shelter and to feed on the parasitic skin worms that had plagued the reavers in life.