Villains by Necessity (v1.1)

by Eve Forward

  Fenwick heard Towser shout, “No!” as there was a sudden burst of flame in the twilight. Lumathix blasted fire into the path of the fleeing renegades, and they would surely have been finished had it not been for the properties of the salts. Lumathix, who made his home in the secret high wild places of Goodness, had never seen a salt-desert before, and did not know why Tasmene and Fenwick had carefully kept their fires small, and lit only on large slabs of stone.

  Ignited by the exploding-hot dragonfire, the complex chemicals burst into wild blue flames, sweeping across the sands. Lumathix shrilled as the unnatural flames singed even his fireproof skin, and jumped into the air with a great downrush of wings. The fire licked and roared about the hooves of horses and centaur, going too fast to burn yet, then swept back, growing in strength, to threaten the charge of the Company.

  The Company tumbled to a halt, and then was in full retreat. The flames licked out in a wide, sweeping path, blown on the scouring winds back toward the camp at incredible speed. Any rider who tried to outflank the flames would be caught in the superhot fire. The fire would exhaust itself explosively soon, but they must retreat now, or suffer a death of horrible agony.

  The villains knew that any gods they might have had in their favor had vanished long ago, so it was only pure luck and chance that let them pass through and away from the flames with only mild scorches and the painful burning of ammonia-like fumes in their eyes.

  “Where be we runnin’?” shouted Arcie, the wind slashing his words.

  “Away!” Valerie cried back. “No time to look for the last Test... we’ve got to put some distance between ourselves and them!”

  “We can’t leave Kaylana!” Sam shouted, still wrenching at the horse’s mane, trying to get it to turn. It was ignoring him, even though he pulled out a great hank of its chestnut hair in his frustration. As he raised a hand to try to knock it across the cheek, in the hopes of shocking it out of its mad dash, it angled its head back and looked at him, without slowing down. Sam froze, barely remembering to keep his seat. The horse’s eyes were green, a very familiar green.

  “Mountains ... ahead!” called Robin, gasping with the effort of his gallop. He normally wore horseshoes, to protect his hooves from cobblestones, but the long journey over the rocky terrain had loosened them, and in this mad dash he’d thrown both of the shoes on his left side, and was beginning to feel the bruises as he ran unbalanced.

  The mountains sloped up in jagged, rocky crags, so battered by storm and wind that they had taken on strange shapes; here a dragon sprawled, there a rabbit seemed to hunker, an eagle with its wings outspread, and a twisted human face. The shapes leered from the pinnacles of the stony gate to the mountain gorges beyond.

  The figures were silhouetted in brief, painful contrast in sporadic flashes of lightning, and the smell of storm in the air was even stronger.

  “Robin! Can you make it up the hills?” called Valerie.

  “I think so! I’m game to try!”

  They thundered to a halt as they reached the first scree, the riders dismounting. Blackmail’s borrowed roan horse turned and trotted away, but when Sam slid off the back of the chestnut mare, the animal seemed to waver slightly and then shrank itself into a familiar Druid with tousled hair. Arcie reacted in surprise.

  “Och! How did you do that, lassie?” he demanded.

  “Kaylana! How ... where ...” began Sam, but the Druid pointed back across the desert, and Valerie, following her gaze, cursed.

  The fires had died down, whether by natural means or some action by the Company, and Fenwick’s army was coming up fast again, so close they could see the leading figure. He was waving a sword that glowed with its own shining white fire, and Sam shuddered as he looked at it.

  “Up the hills!” commanded Kaylana. “We must get to safety before the storm breaks!”

  “We canna find safety in some bloody rocks,” snapped Arcie. “They’ll catch us up like rabbits!”

  “Leave that to me! Go!” she insisted. And so, skittering and stumbling, they clambered up the rough slope.

  Robin stumbled and staggered, but his human intellect helped him find the best pathway, and the occasional helpful shove from Blackmail allowed him to scramble on.

  Sam was the last to begin the climb into the rocks. A few fat drops of ice-cold rain spattered him. As he looked out at their pursuers, he realized that though the Company may not have been able to see the precise point where they entered the mountains, they could surely find the trail... unless could distract them until the rain could muddy and confuse the path.

  Sam jumped down from the slope and began to run along the edge of the mountains, running open and visible, keeping an eye on the pursuers. The rain suddenly exploded, pounding down around him, soaking him in seconds. He looked to the pursuers ... closer, closer, maybe three hundred yards? Less? And here was another pass through the mountains, already running with a trickle of water. He began scrambling up, climbing openly and obviously, and looked back.

  They saw him all right. He saw them converge, come flooding up to him like waves as he abandoned the pass and strove for height alone, like a treed animal.

  As they scrambled down into the gully and ran along the bottom, Robin jumping and tumbling over the huge rocks, the rain was already making the gully-bottom ripple and run with water. Light-suffused the world might be but rain was still as plentiful as flowers. Arcie was the first to try to make a headcount, as a lightning flash and immediate explosion of thunder turned the gully into a blast of light and noise.

  “Where’s that assassin?” he shouted, over the storm.

  Kaylana stopped, turning to look, but Valerie grabbed her by the arm and dragged her along through the wet.

  “We wouldn’t stop for you, we can’t stop for him! Come on!” shrieked the sorceress, and Kaylana, gripping her staff, tumbled on.

  “We must find a dry cave,” she explained, trying to be heard through the storm. “These canyons will flood very soon, when the rain comes off the mountains.”

  “What’s a dry cave?” shouted Robin, and then cried out suddenly as a treacherous rock twisted under him. He fell hard, in a tangle of legs, into the muddy gully. Blackmail pointed upstream, even as he moved to assist the centaur.

  There, tucked under an outcropping on which grew a few scraggled pines, was a dark shadow above the slicked line of a high-water mark. The others scrambled toward it as Kaylana and Blackmail helped the centaur stand.

  Robin was hopping on three legs awkwardly.

  “Nothing broken,” said Kaylana tersely. “Still, a sprain. Come, we will get you to safety.”

  “I can make it.” Robin gritted his teeth and began clawing his way with all six limbs along the rocks. When his leg would fail him, he would push himself along by his arms. The rain made the rocks slippery and sharp, and by the time they reached the bottom of the dry cave, Robin was cut and bloody, and Kaylana and Blackmail were bruised and mud-covered. The water in the gully was a respectable creek now.

  Arcie and Valerie had already climbed up the rough rocks to the cave, and lowered a rope that was tied to protruding tree roots within. Kaylana ascended, and then Blackmail. The knight braced his mailed feet against the lip of the cave, and hauled on the rope, dragging Robin slowly up the wall. The centaur scrambled and kicked his way along, and finally tumbled into the safety of the cave, blood and rain plastering his mane to his face and shoulders. Only then did his strength fail him, and he collapsed on the rough uneven floor.

  Unbeknownst to either heroes or villains, a set of Elven eyes were watching the proceedings with interest.

  Mizzamir had managed, by hint of scrying on Sir Fenwick, to get a good all-around view of the scene. He’d watched as Sam led the pursuit off, and tsked to himself.

  He pulled up a large chair and sat down to watch. The party with the Druid soon slipped from view, hidden by the Druid’s magic and the help of the storm and other elements that favored her. But he could watch the area of Fenwick’s a
ttention, and did so, holding his chin thoughtfully.

  Sam scrambled up the tower of stone until there wasn’t any more, just slick steep rock and a tiny ledge just big enough for him to stand on. He looked down.

  Sir Fenwick, Lord Tasmene, and the rest came up to the bottom of the stone, and stopped, looking up at him.

  He thought he recognized, what was her name, Dana?, from Putak-Azum down there. Fenwick shouted an order, and men in green and yellow tunics dismounted and ran through the rain to surround his stony pinnacle, which was barely the height and size of an average castle tower. Sam looked up at the rest of it, through the driving rain, and in the dim twilight of the storm saw its shape loom above him, like a bird with a great streamlined head and hooked beak, wide raptor’s wings uneven but outspread, and its shanks driving down to surround his ledge like a nest, or like great claws.

  In his mirror, Mizzamir saw the strange rock-shape as well. He frowned. It seemed somehow familiar ... years ago, in the War and storm and rain, and the ever-gloomy Tamarne stomping off to bargain with the gods, or so he’d said ... Fenwick sighed and put Truelight, the glowing sword, Slayer of Darkness, into its scabbard. It seemed to hum in disappointment. He unslung his bow instead.

  “Well, we’ve treed one of them.”

  “It would be deadly to follow the others into the pass,” agreed Lord Tasmene. “I’ve been in those passes before ... in storms they are full of floods and rockslides ... impossible to travel.”

  “We will have to continue the search as soon as possible,” said Fenwick. “But, in the meantime, we can at least get rid of this one.”

  “Shall I send someone up after him?” offered Lord Tasmene. Fenwick shook his head.

  “No, that would be a waste... besides... this one...”

  Fenwick squinted up at the figure. The assassin. It could only be. Without moving his gaze, he took out one of his best hunting arrows, with the wide, razor-sharp double blades, set at right angles so there was a pointed cross of steel to cut into flesh and organs. “This one ... is mine.”

  He nocked the arrow, drew back, pointed the bow high. The figure under the eagle-shaped rock seemed to be watching him. He almost chuckled. The rain ran down the arrow and onto his hand, but his bow was of Troisian make and never felt the weather.

  “Nowhere to dodge, scorpion. For all your cleverness, I doubt you can learn to fly faster than my arrows.”

  The arrow leaped from the bow, and the figure on the ledge stumbled.

  The arrow had hit Sam in the hip. It had been aimed for his gut, he knew: a slow, painful death that he had only barely avoided. He could feel the point grating against bone as he leaned against the rock wall, vowing to meet death on his feet.

  “Ooh, you missed his vitals, Fenny,” commented Tasmene.

  “Your aim is slipping.”

  “No it isn’t.” Another shaft hissed through the rain.

  Sam was luckier at dodging this one; but it skimmed across his arm and tore open some important veins before it stuck in his shoulder. Again he’d been lucky; that one had been meant for a lung. The pain was intense, as the salty dust washed off the rock and into his wounds.

  His blood was warm on his arm, and he looked down at Fenwick, a dagger in his hand. Bad angle, and Fenwick was coping with it well... however, of course, Fenwick could miss. Sam never did.

  “Bastard,” hissed Sam silently to the figure below.

  “Let’s see how well your Company can track with you undergoing resurrection?” If only the woodsman would step out just a bit more ...

  “Fenny, don’t be cruel... finish the poor man. After all, he’s human, just like you and I.” Tasmene looked concerned. The figure was slumping. Sir Fenwick sighed.

  “Very well. I’ll get in from the front-clearer shot there.” Fenwick urged his horse forward a few paces, and somewhat to the side, drawing a last arrow.

  There was a sudden movement, and Fenwick jerked back. The horse, already upset, reared as something hit the ground with a metallic sound, and leaped up again, spinning. A curse from one of the company to his left reported minor damage. Fenwick steadied his horse and looked up at the figure on the ledge, which had almost fallen in the effort of throwing the dagger.

  “Some sting left, scorpion? Try this.” Fenwick drew back his bow as the figure slowly collapsed, still visible.

  At that moment, as though to help his aim, the roiling sea of stormcloud above broke open just enough to let a shaft of moonlight down, spotlighting the pinnacle. He fired.

  With the failed attack Sam felt his strength leave him, too much of his blood gone for the fire to burn strong enough. He slumped onto his knees, blood running down his legs and arms from his wounds and mixing with the rainwater in puddles on the ledge, but mostly blood, red blood, seeping into the stone and filling up cracks in the ledge ... funny how you notice these things, he thought, even as he felt the arrow heading toward him, toward his heart and too fast to dodge, how one looks at cracks and they almost look deliberate, kneeling here like this and you wonder what they looked like before wind and rain got them, a hundred and fifty years ago and... glowing?

  There was a faint puff of crimson light, and the ledge was empty. Only Fenwick’s keen ears heard the splintering noise of the arrow hitting the stone. Tasmene’s eyebrows flew up in surprise.

  “Cror’s blood. Fenny, good shot! You vaporized him! Magical arrow, eh?”

  Sir Fenwick said nothing, but stared at the blank rocky ledge, his expression unreadable. The stone eagle seemed to look back down at him with the same face.

  Mizzamir sat bolt upright in his chair. Tamarne’s Test!

  The last Test... the last chance. He had to do something.

  He quickly collected some of his strongest magics and watched the mirror carefully.

  The waters had reached a point about three feet below the entrance to their cramped hideout. The dry cave was very shallow, with barely enough room for all of them.

  The wind blew the rain straight in, and they were chilled and wet through. Robin lapsed into the sick slumber of exhaustion, his injured leg swelling painfully. Kaylana cleaned and bound his wounds and those of Arcie and Valerie and herself as best she could, and they huddled together in the uncomfortable shelter. Robin was useful here, at least; his large bulk provided warmth and some protection from the wind and the rain, and Arcie and Valerie took full advantage of this, huddling behind him and slipping into cramped slumber. Blackmail watched at the entrance, also providing something of a windbreak, and Kaylana curled herself up against Robin’s side, with the knight’s broad armored back shielding her from the weather, and fell asleep, her thoughts troubled with the black-garbed figure that had run away from them in the storm.

  Sam collapsed onto a cold stone floor, his vision dissolving in a swirl of red and black mist, the arrows grinding in his flesh. There was no sense of danger, just a slow fatalistic gloom. He would die now, and at the hands of some

  stupid pompous prince, of Trois no less, bloody Elfhuggers, and he would have to spend his time in the spe cial hell for assassins who died before completing their mission, and what a long and painful way to go, too ... arrows, why couldn’t it have been a good clean sword blow, or dragon breath, or something ... his conscious ness fled.

  When he woke again, his first thought was pain, the next, anger. The arrows still cut him, and his wounds were aching from the infection and salt. He wasn’t even dead yet! Stupid Fenwick couldn’t even kill him when Sam gave up. Azel, blast you, dark lord whom I’ve served so long, where is your release? Do even you abandon me?

  Sam rolled onto his back, gasping and choking with nau sea. He couldn’t see, but his assassin senses again felt no danger. He gripped the shaft of the arrow that grated in his hip, and worked at it. Barbed? No. Good. Trust a hero ... He slowly and carefully pulled it out and passed out silently from the pain.

  When he came round again, a few minutes later, he pushed the arrow in his shoulder straight out the other side, just as
he had been taught. He managed to stuff some of the crenelations of his tunic into the wounds, and then went down for another nap.

  When he woke again, about a half-hour later, his mind was beginning to clear, although his wounds were swell ing. He finally began to wonder where he was, and what he could do about it. He managed to open his crusted eyes and looked blearily around. All was whiteness that hurt his eyes and made it hard to see anything. He squinted, tried to focus.

  The first thing he saw was himself, pale, bloody, and battered. His zombie-like self-care had probably saved his life; the bloody arrows lying beside him were tipped with lethal blades, the first of which would surely have punctured his vital organs had he moved about much more. But he would still be dead soon if he couldn’t find some way to clean himself, and get food and water.

  Water ... there was a possibility. He could sense a faint dripping noise, and the room he was in ... a room, yes.

  White marble. Large room, perhaps ... he shifted a bit, listened to the echoes ... fifty or sixty feet square? Neu tral air, no smells but his own salty reek. Light, no source. And a dripping sound.

  He rolled onto his good side and looked about. The sound came from the center of the room, where a large white marble fountain of simple design rose from the floor. It was in the shape of two bowls, one about twelve feet in diameter supported on a short column above an other that was slightly larger. The water dripped slowly from the top level to the one below. On one leg and one arm, Sam dragged himself to the fountain. The lower level, he noted with cynical satisfaction, was only damp, steeply sloped so that the drops ran down to the base and whatever pumping mechanism lay within. He’d have to stand up to get the water, typical. As he paused for breath, he noticed something odd about the rhythmic fall of water. It took him a moment to figure it out; it was a beat quite similar to that of a human heart... it perfectly matched his own, slow, stumbling pulse, in fact.