A Hero Born

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Despite the unsafe conditions, the top of the tower was perfect for our purposes. Up there we had a spectacular view of the outer courtyard and some of the terrain beyond it. We couldn’t see anything out there that indicated the Bharasfiadi were closing in, but Tyrchon’s warning about their stealthy approaches meant the lack of signs didn’t surprise me. They were out there, and we were setting up to give them a fierce battle.

  Nagrendra crouched by a window in the tower’s northern face. He set the first line of stones, the ones sixty feet from the manor, in a line on a low shelf. He arranged all six of them in numerical order so they all touched corner to corner in a line. The four stones taken from closer in he placed in a small alcove set to the right of his window. “This was once a shrine for a statue of the Earth Mother. I do not think she will mind its appropriation for this purpose.”

  I watched him arrange those triangles in a line, but he did not have them touching each other. “Is this going to be enough to keep the Bharasfiadi back?”

  He shook his head. “No, not beyond the first night. The Bharashadi have absolutely no concern for their own safety. It probably has to do with this Necroleum you speak of as being our goal. If they truly believe they will be resurrected and their position after death depends upon their bravery before death, they will come at us without any concern for themselves. In fact, if they know the resurrection will be accomplished soon, they will be even more ferocious than normal.”

  “Why do you and Tyrchon think they will not hit us tonight?” I stood on my tiptoes and looked out into the night. “They were no further away than we were, and it only took us half a day to get here.”

  “Not true.” Nagrendra drew a semicircle in the dust on the weathered wooden floor. “We were able to cut across the inside of the circle to get to this point. The Bharashadi had to traverse the exterior of the arc, and you should know that much of that terrain is quite inhospitable. The first night they will send a hundred after us. The next night it will be more. That will go on until we escape or are destroyed.”

  1 moved to another window—one that had been enlarged by pulling stones out of the casement—and stared off into the distance. While my vantage point would give me an unobstructed view of the area to the west during the day, at night I could see little or nothing. The stars above barely twinkled at all and looked purple and green instead of the reds and whites I expected to see. “No moon in Chaos?”

  The Reptiad shook his head. “No, there is one. It’s just black. It will be coming up soon. You can spot it as it devours stars.”

  Off in the distance I saw a ghostly green light bobbing up and down as hills and rocks blocked my view of it. Despite the interference, I did see that it was moving very rapidly and coming in our direction. Along with it I heard the faint drum of hoofbeats.

  “I think you’re wrong about our not being attacked. Riders.”

  Nagrendra pushed me out of the way and looked out. “No, dammit, not again.” He moved to the other side of the tower and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Eirene, lock up that beast you ride! The Emerald Horse is coming!”

  Returning to the window I saw the light get closer. The sounds of galloping horses echoed from the plateau walls as the Emerald Horse led his herd up the trail we had used to reach the mansion. The light vanished for a second, then appeared again as the fabled creature trotted into the mansion’s courtyard.

  A more magnificent animal I do not think I have ever seen. Perfectly sculpted from glowing green crystal, the warhorse reared up in the courtyard and slashed his front hooves through the air. Muscles bunched and flowed fluidly on his semitransparent body. His mane and tail, though made of stone, flew as if hair. Landing on all fours he froze for a second and became a jewel-statue, then his nostrils flared and he neighed out a loud challenge.

  Behind him came a host of animals as unique as the Emerald Horse himself. I could see that all of them had been, at one time, horses, but Chaos had changed them in a myriad of ways. Some looked to be zombi-creatures while others appeared as fully animated wooden hobbyhorses, i saw some with exoskeletons resembling the armor in which their masters had once encased them and one beast with a coat of quills like a porcupine.

  The Emerald Horse again reared up and neighed. From within the mansion 1 heard our horses answer him, then Eirene’s angry shout. As I watched, her mount burst from the mansion, leaping through one of the empty windows, it slowed as it approached the Emerald Horse, then ducked away from the nip he tried to give it and took up its place in his herd.

  Eirene ran into the courtyard, sword in hand. The Emerald Horse turned and faced her, then charged, stopped, and reared. His hooves flashed at her, then he came down again and bolted off toward the west. His herd followed and galloped off along the trail leading north and deeper into Chaos.

  Below Eirene sank to her knees and covered her face with her hands. I saw Kit come out and kneel by her side. I turned from them and looked at Nagrendra. “The Emerald Horse stole your mount as well?”

  He nodded slowly. “The big horse with chain-mail skin, that was Seilide.”

  Despite the regret in his reply, and the obvious pain crushing Eirene down, something inside me would not see the Emerald Horse as evil. I wanted to whistle for him as I would for Stail and make him my mount. On such a wondrous creature, I could not be defeated. But even as I wanted to bring the Emerald Horse under my control, I knew his power could not be controlled unless he wished it to be controlled.

  I glanced back at Nagrendra. “Do you wish you had her back?”

  “Deny her freedom?” He shook his head slowly. “When you have been a Chaos Rider for as long as I have, you may understand this. I do not regret having lost her, I regret not having been able to go with her.”

  23

  E

  irene and I rode out of the mansion courtyard early in the morning. We headed off on the route the Emerald Horse had taken with his herd, but our goal was not to track him. His herd was gone and with it her horse. She borrowed a horse from Xoayya for our trek and seemed resigned to having to deal with it for the rest of our expedition.

  The Emerald Horse’s line of retreat led to a smaller, more treacherous path curving up around Gorecrag. Our goal was the top of the mountain itself, but I noticed Eirene seemed fairly intent on the tracks left behind by the Emerald Horse’s herd. To Eirene’s disappointment the Emerald Horse’s herd left the path less than a quarter mile from the mansion, to run down a steep, rocky slope and off into the countryside.

  “Eirene, I’m very sorry your horse went with the Emerald Horse. I …”

  “Save it, Locke.” She’d gathered her long hair into a thick braid. “I should have known better. This mission, this place. I never should have let Roarke talk me into this.”

  Riding in back of her, I could not hear her curse, but I saw her body jerk with its vehemence. She wore ring-joined plate armor that had a dull gray sheen to it. From where I sat it looked as if the antler spikes she wore at her elbows and heels had become longer and sharper. She used the heel spikes like spurs to urge her new horse up a steep part of the trail.

  1 knew she felt bad about losing her horse, and even though she tended to keep to herself, I thought she might feel better talking about it. “So, what was your horse’s name? I don’t think you ever mentioned it.”

  She twitched in reaction to my comment as if it had been a barbed arrow that caught her in the spine. “He didn’t have a name. If you name an animal, you get too attached to it, and it will be taken away from you. They said the Emerald Horse only takes horses with names into his herd.” Eirene turned and gave me a toothy grin. “That’s the same thing they used to say about your father’s Valiant Lancers. The only Riders who became part of that unit were those who had made a name for themselves.”

  1 ignored her attempt to deflect me by mentioning my father. “You never named your horse because you were afraid the Emerald Horse would take him away?”

  “Six years ago, when I f
irst became a rider, the Emerald Horse was known to raid Rider camps for horses, but 1 didn’t believe it.”

  “Had you ever seen him before?” I got Stail up the switchback without having to resort to the use of my spurs. “Last night he was incredible.”

  “So says anyone who has not lost a horse to him.” Bitterness and anger underscored her comment. “I saw the Emerald Horse once, a long time ago when he took a horse from a compatriot of mine.”

  “What happened?”

  “The Drasacor were hunting us. They’re the tribe people call the Mist Demons. They ambushed our group. My friend died because she thought my horse was not strong enough to carry both of us to safety. She made me go, and she stayed to act as a rear guard.” She shook her head. “Chaos is not a nice place.”

  “This I have gathered.”

  “But do you know it, do you really know it?” She turned in the saddle and pointed out toward the limitless plains of Chaos. “Something out here killed your father. It killed Kit’s father. Doesn’t that make you afraid?”

  1 nodded. “It does, it scares me a great deal. But then not doing what we have come here to do scares me even more. I don’t believe I have a choice.”

  “Congratulations, you are now a Chaos Rider.” Eirene reined her horse back, then dismounted. She looped the reins around a spur of rock, then motioned for me to do the same. I did, and as I came forward, I saw what she had seen from further up the trail.

  “By all the gods!” I dropped down on one knee. “Is that it?”

  “That’s it. That is where Fialchar lives.” Eirene dropped a hand to my left shoulder. “That is Castel Payne.”

  Looming in the distance like a distinctly dark and brooding thunderhead, a spired castle floated above the ground. Given the rough, conical mound of dirt stuck to the bottom of it, the castle looked as if it had been ripped from the ground by the hand of a giant gardener pulling weeds. Indeed, the outer wall looked as if it had been crushed inward by external forces.

  Even First Stop Mansion looked to be in better condition than Castel Payne’s siege wall.

  The interior castle, however, looked untouched. The outer spires glittered and sparkled as if a jeweler had fashioned them from green ocean water frozen into a vast block of ice. The whole thing had the complex transparency of emerald with the color of milky jade. The castle walls showed no crenellations or any other martial artifice to suggest it had been created as a fortress. Sunlight flashed from glassine edges that 1 had no doubt could slice like a razor.

  Yet as beautiful as Castel Payne appeared to the eye, my soul ached because of the corruption and evil it harbored. There was a viper hidden among those jeweled towers. I remembered the Bear’s Eve Ball and the ease with which he had manipulated all of us. My hands tightened down into fists, and I spat at the floating fortress.

  “Take a bit more than spit to bring it down, I think, Locke.”

  I nodded, then laughed. “It’s a start.”

  “True.” Her face darkened as I looked up at her. “Still, this is not good.”

  I furrowed my brows. “What do you mean not good’? His castle is closer than we had dared hope, and it appears to be coming in this direction.”

  “We knew it would be close because that would be the only way he could have teleported into the palace, or so you said the Emperor’s experts seemed to think.”

  “Right.”

  “But they expected him to be going away from the Ward Walls.”

  I saw her target. “So what does it mean that he is coming this way?”

  Her eyes became slivers of opal. “I am not certain, but I do not like what comes immediately to mind.”

  “And that is?”

  “He knows we are here, and he knows the Bharasfiadi are after us.” She squinted at Castel Payne. “If he keeps drifting this way, he should be in a perfect position to watch the Black Shadows wipe us out tonight.”

  I whistled for Stail, and we mounted up. Eirene and I talked very little as we headed back down to First Stop Mansion. Our original plan had called for us to locate Castel Payne and, as nearly as possible, get right under it. Both Nagrendra and Taci were skilled enough in Conveyance magick to elevate half of us up to the flying castle. There we would talk with Lord Disaster, explain the problem he was going to have concerning lots of Black Shadows running wild through Chaos. He would give us the Staff of Emeterio, and we would go destroy the Necroleum.

  The difficulty with that plan was that to implement it now would leave six people on the ground while the rest went up to Castel Payne. We had no idea what would happen to those of us who went up to beard Fialchar in his own den, but we had an excellent idea of what would happen to those we left on the ground. A comatose Roarke would do nothing to help the others, which left five people against a hundred Bharashadi.

  Those were longer odds than anyone cared to take on, and if the dust cloud Eirene and I saw on the horizon was any indication, the Bharashadi might have sent more warriors than Tyrchon had estimated. Reinforced or not, the Black Shadow threat meant, for all practical purposes, we could not afford even one of our magickers to be used to send me or Kit up to have a chat with Lord Disaster.

  “In short,” I told the others as we joined them for an early-evening meal of bean-and-rice gruel, “If we survive tonight, we can try to reach Castel Payne.”

  “We’ll have to survive,” Hansen declared as he put his wooden platter down. He waited until all eyes were upon him, then smiled. “Well, 1 would hate to think this was going to be my last meal.”

  After we finished eating we completed the preparations for the Bharashadi assault. The archers among us took up positions at the windows in the front of the house or, in Aleix’s case, on the first floor of the north tower. Osane and Donla hid in the only good room on the northern side of the central corridor, while Kit, Eirene, and Hansen held the left wing. Tyrchon and I waited in the corridor to reinforce whichever side had Bharashadi reach it first. Because the opal eyes made night vision much clearer, Osane would call shots for Donla, and Eirene would try to direct Kit and Hansen.

  I expected, by the time the Bharashadi got close enough for me to deal with them—opal eyes or not—1 would be able to see them very well indeed.

  Taci remained in control of our fallback position. We had placed our remounts back in the part of the mansion built into the cliff, but kept our own horses saddled and in the courtyard in case we decided that running was our only way out. I knew we all wanted to avoid that because it would mean, among other things, that Roarke would die.

  Nagrendra had instructed Taci how to deal with the stones he had taken from the windows and doorway. We hoped whatever he told her to do would buy us the necessary time to fall back, if we were overrun. She agreed it would.

  Nagrendra put himself in the highly hazardous position at the top of the north tower and would not allow

  Aleix to be stationed with him. “I do not need anyone else getting in my way,” he announced to us.

  Xoayya tapped him on the shoulder. “I will not be in your way.”

  The Reptiad shook his head. “1 will not have you there with me. You should be with Roarke.”

  “My place is not with Roarke.”

  “Your place is not with me.” Nagrendra’s membranes flicked up over his opal eyes. “Locke, convince her of this.”

  Xoayya looked hard at Nagrendra. “And if 1 convince Locke I should be there with you?”

  That clearly surprised the Reptiad. His tongue snapped in and out of his mouth a couple of times, then he nodded. “I will abide by his decision.”

  1 frowned at Xoayya. “Being with him will be too dangerous.”

  She grabbed my hand and led me away from the rest of the group. “Hear me out, Locke. If you can deny me after I explain, I will agree to what you want, but give me a fair hearing.” Though she kept her voice low, she could not mute the urgency and passion in it.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Think back to the night of
the Bear’s Eve Ball. You remember the magick Fialchar used?”

  I shivered. “All too well.”

  “So do I.” She hugged her arms around herself. “I don’t know what you felt, but I have to guess it was what I did. I saw it in your eyes as I pirouetted past you. Fialchar’s magick reached down inside of me. It touched something deep and primitive.”

  “I know.” I blushed as I remembered what I’d felt. “Lust and fury. 1 was more an animal than a man.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s it.” Her blue eyes flashed, and I thought I caught a hint of Chaosfire in them. “For the first time in my life I felt something, experienced something that was of me. Prior to that 1 was always someone’s daughter, or a tragic figure to be coddled and insulated, and when I wasn’t that, 1 was having visions of futures that were not my own. Your suggestion about songs allowed me to begin to control my mind, but Fialchar’s magick took me to where 1 could be if I mastered my mind and power.”

  She opened her arms, and her hands curled into fists. “For the first time I felt as if I was living my own life.”

  My face hardened. “If you’re trying to scare me, it’s working.”

  “No, Locke, not that at all.” She stepped closer to me and rested her hands on my shoulders. “It is just that since I have come into Chaos 1 again feel alive. More importantly, I’m not seeing what will happen as much as I’m feeling it. I don’t see myself in the tower with Nagrendra, but 1 know that’s where I’m supposed to be.”

  “I still don’t find myself compelled to put you in that danger.”

  “Look at it this way: as you explained to my grandmother, and she explained it to me, if there are multiple futures for me, switching between them happens at very select and important decision points.” She pointed back toward the north tower. “Being there, tonight, is one of those points. Just as every decision you have made has defined who and what you are, this point will help me define who and what 1 am.”