Wizardborn (42 page)

It was no easy feat. The hill was steep, and as she sprinted, boughs overhead blotted out the starlight. It was nearly half a mile from the shade of the nearest limb to the deepest recesses at the bole of the tree.

The limbs rose high overhead as she entered the shadows.
The pungent leaves smelled so strongly that Erin realized that she'd never truly tasted the scent of an oak before. Her feet thudded over the ground, muted by a thick carpet of decaying leaves. Darkness and cold reigned under the tree. Sunlight had not warmed the soil here for a thousand years. Under the vast tree, nothing grew.

Erin stumbled. Dry bones clacked beneath her feet. Fallen leaves had hidden them. She saw a greatsword thrust into the ground, a monument to a battle. The bones of creatures that might have been men lay all about. She saw the glint of bright armor, and a skull that was too wide of face to have been human.

Lightning struck closer, only a mile or two off by the sound of it. It threw stark shadows. Erin feared that it would show her up to anything that flew above. The cries of Darkling Glories sounded, an unearthly howling.

Erin ran deep under the great oak. The trunk was old, twisted, and no less than ninety feet across. Lightning flashed close to the ground, and a scream involuntarily tore from Erin's throat—for in the stark light, she saw that the tree had a face: eyes and a wide mouth.

She drew to a halt and peered into the shadows, until a flickering bolt revealed the scene again.

The enormous trunk was old and wrinkled, bent in on itself. Moss and lichens covered the hoary thing. But someone had hacked away a face on its surface—a woman's face. Her features were beautiful and unearthly. Her mouth was wide, as if she were calling out. Her open mouth led to a hollow beneath the roots of the tree.

Shelter. The mouth was a vast cavern twenty feet wide. She raced through the opening, tripped and rolled down a long hill. She landed, clattering among bones.

She smelled the musky scent of some animal's den. The tree's shadow had eclipsed the bright starlight. Everything was black, except when lightning split the sky. The heavens snarled. A tempest rose.

Erin climbed back to the opening, kept herself low to the ground. Lightning flickered. Perhaps half a mile off, a hart
bounded across the open fields. It floated over the ground as if in a dream.

But the Darkling Glories came. A howl of warning rose from their throats, a hunting cry that froze the bones, like the call of a wolf mingled with a screaming wind and the rumble of a distant storm.

A lightning bolt was hurled before the hart. It leapt right, making for the shelter of a tree. A second bolt struck the earth. The hart veered again.

Shadows descended. Winged beasts swirled out of the sky like bats dropping into a cave, and the hart was gone.

A shadow blotted out all light overhead, and Erin heard the rush of wings. Something enormous swept through the air above her, then rose again, into the den. Erin felt the wind of its passage.

A Darkling Glory, she realized, her heart thudding. She threw her face into the dirt, and dared not move.

But there was no hunting cry. No claws raked her. Instead, she heard the sound of wings shifting, an enormous bird primping its feathers. It made a soft throaty noise, the sound of an owl, “Whooo.”

But the bird was much larger than any owl. Its wingspan could not have been less than twenty feet.

The lightning continued to strike out on the plains. The tree shook with the rumble of thunder and the roars of Darkling Glories. Lightning flashed overhead. Wind screamed through the tree boughs, and leaves rained down.

Erin clutched the haft of her warhammer, turned to try to glimpse her companion, to see if it posed a threat.

By the flickering thrill of lightning, she saw the beast perched above her, about fifty feet away. A passage looked as if it led down, into a deeper chasm, but the owl crouched upon a knob of moldy root. The raptor was a downy gray, with bits of white at its breast and a collar of black at its throat. Its golden eyes were as large as saucers, and lightning reflected from them.

The owl watched her, unblinking. Its beak was large
enough to rip off a man's arm. It held something dainty in its beak.

Then her light was gone. An afterimage formed in her mind. She'd seen the gleam of bones on the floor. She recognized the owl's musty smell. This had to be its den.

Lightning flashed, weaving a webwork from horizon to horizon. The owl had closed its eyes, and she saw now what it held in its beak—her dirk!

The owl let the blade fall, and it flashed as it tumbled end over end in the unsteady light, to plunge into a skull on the floor with a whack.

The owl spoke, a whisper that pierced Erin to the core, “Warrior of the Shadow World, I summon you!” The words did not merely ring in Erin's ears, they spoke to her flesh and trembled through her bones.

You're dreaming, she told herself. Wake up.

She found herself back in the forest, with a brilliant blue sky overhead. Celinor rode beside her as their horses picked their way through a streambed. A squirrel in a nearby pine raced round its trunk, chattering.

Erin's heart pounded. In memory she still smelled the musty den beneath the great oak, and heard the grumble of thunder. A surety grew that on some far world,
something
had found her dagger.

   35   

How oft the jailer becomes the jailed! Therein lies the danger of learning to think like the enemy.

—
Adage from Mystarria

“For one little girl,” Gaborn replied to Averan, “you're sure full of bad news.”

He gave her a worried smile, stroked her face, and wondered at the portent of her words.

As Earth King, Gaborn had ridden to Carris in hopes of saving his people. He'd managed to do it in glorious fashion. But in doing so, he'd called attention to himself. The enemy knew his name, and would come to hunt him. Binnesman had warned him that the more people he tried to save, the more his enemies would try to destroy them. Perhaps in freeing Carris he had triggered the battle that would destroy the world.

He hadn't considered this.

He wondered at his own wisdom. Even now he planned to hunt down this One True Master. Was it possible that in doing so, he might provoke the very catastrophe he sought to avoid? No, he didn't believe that. The Earth had whispered to his soul that this was the right course.

Yet doubt nibbled at him. He'd lost most of his powers, and now felt bereft. Could it be that he was mistaken in his designs?

He peered up at Mangan's Rock. The reavers had nearly cleared the trees from its crown. They'd bulled them over the cliff to the ground.

A vast contingent of reavers manned the cliff face as if it were a castle wall. They stood with blades and knight gigs and staves, gazing out like sentries. The philia on their heads waved about, tasting the air.

They'd taken a nearly unassailable position.

“You said that they were racing to the Underworld,” Gaborn asked. “But if they plan to warn their master, why stop now?”

“Maybe it's because you killed their fell mage.”

“So we killed a mage. Does that alter the plan?”

“Yes!” Averan said. “A new sorceress has to take the lead, and she'll… make changes.”

“What do you mean, ‘make changes'?”

Averan huffed. “You killed a mage. That proves that her ideas weren't good enough. The new mage will try new things against you, and pick new leaders for the blade-bearers. Killing one mage can change everything.”

Of course, it made sense when Gaborn thought about it.

“There's no telling what they're plotting,” Skalbairn said.

Gaborn could see a weakness in relying on Averan for information. She could see into the reavers' minds better than any human had ever done. But all of her news was hours old. She couldn't tell Gaborn what he needed to know
now.

“If they are ill and thirsty,” Jerimas offered, “I can see no outward sign of it. But every moment that they sit there on Mangan's Rock is another moment that they'll stay hungry and thirsty.”

“So what is their new mage thinking?” Iome asked.

“Perhaps she's merely waiting for the sun to warm them,” Binnesman offered. “That's what lizards do before they hunt.”

“Or maybe they just want rest or time to think,” Iome suggested.

“Not likely,” Skalbairn said. “That rock is like a fortress. I think the reavers hope to draw us into battle.”

That seemed most probable. Gaborn looked from face to face. Jerimas's eyes twinkled. To the scholar this was
merely an elegant puzzle. Skalbairn was already eyeing the rock, trying to figure out how to pull the reavers down from it. Iome looked scared.

Skalbairn said, “Maybe it's a diversion. By taking a defensive position here, the reavers could hope to draw reinforcements away from nearby castles. They may even have reinforcement of their own on the way.”

That was a frightening thought. Gaborn gave Skalbairn a look. “Right,” he said. “We'll check into it.” He nodded toward a captain nearby, who rushed off to gather scouting parties.

“You know,” Jerimas said, “maybe the reavers have more than one objective.”

Gaborn suspected a plot. Tens of thousands of people in Carris were still in danger. He reached out with his Earth senses, touching them—and immediately noticed something odd. Those people weren't in Carris anymore!

Instead, most had already fled the city, bearing southeast so that now they were just forty miles east and a little north of him. Others of his Chosen were heading west or northward from the city, but Gaborn sensed no trouble around them or those that stayed in Carris—it was only the people traveling southeast. And not even all of those were in danger.

None of the roads in that direction were any good. Most travelers moving southeast took boats on the river Donnestgree to the large cities downstream.

With a sinking heart, he recalled the wounded he had evacuated from Carris. There had been legions of sick and dying—more than ten Binnesmans could have handled. Now they spread for miles along the river. Were they heading into an ambush? The danger was rising. By this time tomorrow it would be upon them. It could be anything—reavers, a flash flood, or an attack by Lowicker's troops.

Gaborn turned to Skalbairn. “While you're sending out scouts, have a dozen men head downstream along the Donnestgree.”

“Yes, milord,” Skalbairn said. He nodded toward his captain.

“You know,” Skalbairn offered in a dangerous tone, “if these reavers do want to warn their master about you, you'll have to stop them.”

“Perhaps my best chance would be to ambush the One True Master,” Gaborn said, “before she hears the news.”

But he had no idea how to reach her in the Underworld. The only person who might decipher the reavers' trails was Averan, and she'd need the Waymaker's knowledge to do it.

She hadn't agreed to lead him. He hadn't even dared to ask her. He didn't want to sacrifice her.