Michael A. Stackpole

by A Hero Born

  “That lack of trust killed him and isn’t likely to make Packkiller’s companions much happier about traveling with him.” I shook my head, then looked up at Taci. “Taci, is there any indication the Bharasfiadi used the Fistfire Sceptre to cast this spell?”

  She hesitated and chewed on her lower lip as she concentrated. “1 felt nothing but pure Chaos and venom, i tried to locate the sceptre, but I got nothing.” She glanced over at Nagrendra for confirmation, and he nodded silently.

  “Well, at least he has not chosen to use it yet, but this close to the Ward Walls we have to assume he’s preparing to put it back together.” I smiled grimly. “1 hope he is not saving it for us.”

  By pushing our horses, we topped the edge of the valley through which the Wardlines ran. I saw the shimmering, shifting wall of light from over a mile away, yet did not realize how tall it truly was until we drew closer. From where 1 first saw it, I thought it rose up perhaps half a mile, then ended. As I rode up to it, though, I discovered it was much taller, and, from near its base, the sky seemed to curve down to join it.

  Any chance I had to speculate about what significance that might have was swept aside as we looked down into the valley. At the very edge of the wall we saw the riders we had been chasing. Amid them stood the black-furred Bharashadi I had seen in the sewers, and in his hands he held the Fistfire Sceptre. As I watched he screwed the gold fist clutching the black pearl onto the shaft.

  The Black Shadow barked a command at his Black Church companions and they hauled themselves back into their saddles. Drawing steel or setting arrow to bow, they started toward us. Behind them the Bharashadi sorcerer began to whirl the sceptre much the way Fialchar had done with the Staff of Emeterio. Above him a glowing red-gold circle began to take shape.

  Without a conscious thought, 1 drew my blade and spurred Stail forward. Behind me I heard others of our company draw their weapons, and Kit shouted something, but I did not hear if it was a warning or encouragement. I knew only one thing: I had to stop the Bharashadi.

  The scouts’ black arrows arced over me in a deadly rain. Two horses went down when hit, spilling their riders into hard landings amid the knee-deep snow. Another man rolled from his saddle when two arrows crossed in his chest, and a fourth was wounded. He fell from the saddle, then was dragged through the snow when a stirrup trapped his foot.

  Roaring past me, Tyrchon’s ears flattened back against his head. He set his spear and skewered one of the Black Churchers in mid-gallop. The crosspiece stopped the man from sliding up the shaft and blasted him back out of the saddle. Tyrchon cast aside the spear and his first victim, then drew his sword.

  The Bfiarasfiadi arced the sceptre down and whirled its head toward me. The hollow circle of light spun madly as it swooped in my direction. Six feet across, with its edge a foot wide and of a snowflake’s thickness, it crackled through the air, coming in at an angle that would burn it through Stail and me.

  I hauled back and left on the reins, cruelly yanking the bit in Stail’s mouth. The beast screamed and started to go down. I kicked free of the stirrups and let my momentum vault me from the saddle. I knew I would not land neatly or easily, but 1 wanted to be clear of Stail and the magick.

  Above me a blue-white fireball jerked through the sky and slammed into the burning circle. They exploded, and the force of the blast hammered me solidly into the ground. The thunderclap deafened me, and 1 tasted blood running from my nose. A wave of heat flashed over me and vaporized the snow in which I lay. Pressing my left hand to the ground to push myself back to my feet, 1 felt soggy, grassy turf and looked down to find myself in a steam-shrouded circle utterly clear of snow.

  As the mist curtain evaporated a Black Churcher launched himself at me. Clearly unschooled in the use of a sword, he held his sabre in both hands and had it raised for a crushing overhand blow. 1 sidestepped from the line of his attack, then whipped my sword across his middle. He folded around the blade, and blood sprayed from it in a crimson arc when it sliced free of his flank. He fell face forward in a snowmelt puddle.

  Tyrchon, knocked from his saddle by the blast or on foot by choice, cut down another of the Black Churchers. Roarke rode through the cultist formation and split the head of one man with his ax. Osane, Eirene, and the scouts again sent a volley of arrows into the Black Churchers while our two magickers rode around the fighting to concentrate on the Bfiarasfiadi.

  Perhaps the smartest of all of us, Xoayya hung back and did nothing.

  A cultist rode his horse straight at me and spurred hard to get the horse to ride me down. Thickly lathered, the horse seemed little of a mind to do his master’s bidding, though he did enter the melted circle. There the horse balked, which, despite his rider’s cursing, was a good thing because two arrows passed through where he would have been just one step forward.

  My grandfather had ingrained in me the idea that fighting from the ground against a mounted swordsman is as close to suicide as I would ever want to get. I darted forward and grabbed the horse’s reins real close to the bit, then ducked to the side as the cultist slashed at me. He drew his arm back again for another cut, this time on the side where I had taken refuge, so I shifted over to the other side. Again he missed, so he spurred his horse forward again.

  I backed quickly, but tripped over the man 1 had killed earlier. As I went down, I lost my grip on the reins and the horse shied from me. This brought his rider around to attack me, but, luckily, I had fallen beneath his reach.

  He straightened up and started to dismount, but never got a chance to complete his move. A streak of silver launched itself from the far side of the horse and toppled him from the saddle. Flashing teeth locked in the man’s throat, Cruach carried the cultist clear of the horse and dumped him beside me. The hound shook the man once to the accompaniment of snapping and popping sounds, then dropped the man’s body. The cultist lay still, with his head canted at an improbable angle.

  As I got up again, I saw the Bharasfiadi stab the Fistfire Sceptre into the Ward Wall. The opal fire slowly slid up over the pearl and engulfed the shaft. The Black Shadow screamed when it touched his hand, and he recoiled as if snakebit. Then he hunched his shoulders, and his tail twitched. He stiffened, then again set himself as if hunting and waiting to take a boar’s charge on his spear.

  Starting with the sceptre’s shaft, a red light pulsed out. it washed over the Chaos demon and clung to him as if he had been drenched in blood. The creamy opal light continued to swallow him, but it took on a pinkish hue as it did so. He straightened up and almost casually turned to face us. Grasping the sceptre in both hands, he raised it above his head and the blood-sphere expanded around him.

  Through the space between him and the edge of the sphere, I caught my first glimpse of Chaos. In so small a view, and one filtered through the sphere, I could see none of the features 1 had studied so long and hard to recognize. 1 did, however, see something moving, but I could make no sense of it.

  Xoayya could and did. “Archers! Bharashadi archers! Get down.”

  A flight of wickedly barbed arrows pierced the Ward Wall. They fell indiscriminately as the archers shot blindly through the wall. Horses fell and men went down, then those who were still able fled from the site of the first attack. A second overlapped the first to the far side of the battlefield, catching two more horses and one cultist.

  Our archers returned a volley. From my vantage point I thought I saw two Bharashadi warriors fall, but I could not confirm my guess as the sorcerer stepped fully through the Ward Wall. It fell like a curtain to hide him, but did nothing to muffle his mocking laughter.

  We quickly withdrew from the area back up to the valley lip. That gave us nearly five hundred yards of clear killing ground if the Bharashadi decided to breach the wall and send a raid out after us. As riding up the snowy slope would be much more difficult than charging down it, the Chademons would find challenging us very costly.

  Of the fourteen cultists who had engaged us, half of them were dead, four were
wounded, and three had surrendered without getting hurt. We also recovered twenty horses, but they were in such bad shape we knew they would be good for nothing for far longer than we could take to care for them. Even so, Urien prevailed upon Kit to let him tend to them, and we agreed to feed the horses from the grain we had brought for our own mounts.

  Roarke proved very good at getting information out of the captured Black Churchers. He pointed to Nagrendra and told them, “Your mind is an apple, and what we want to know is cider. If you make it necessary, he has a spell that will work better than a cider press and get it. You’ll be left with mush for brains, but that’s not much of a concern for me. What will it be? Shall we let the Reptiad have the sort of fun we’ve denied him so far or will you frustrate him by cooperating?”

  Unfortunately, as good as Roarke’s technique was, the cultists had little to tell us. The Fistfire Sceptre had been broken down into parts and hidden in the personal baggage of various riders. A spy within the Imperial Guard had given the cultists the patrol schedules, and when one watch at Northgate was comprised of Black Churchers, the Bharashadi was smuggled out of the city. They had left over a week after our departure and had worn out two more sets of remounts over and above the ones we had seen abandoned

  Kit and I consulted with Taci and Roarke as we tried to make some very serious decisions. While the black Churchers were guilty of crimes that would get them beheaded by Imperial officials, and Kit could carry out such a sentence here and still remain within his authority, I felt reluctant to kill them outright. “They know about people back in the capital who are Black Churchers. They know who helped put this theft into place, and, given how they were shot at by Bfiarasfiadi archers, their friend was killed, and that baker’s family died in Herakopolis, they might be convinced to reveal the identities of their fellow conspirators.”

  “Fine, Locke, there is a reason to keep them alive. If we do, however, that means we bring them with us or send them back to Imperial Plains.” Kit warmed his hands over the fire we had made. “We do not have the rations or people necessary to do the former. Sending them back to Imperial Plains means we have to send someone back with them, and 1 am reluctant to reduce our number. We were lucky that we only lost one of Roarke’s horses to the Bfiarasfiadi arrows.”

  “It was more their mistreatment than our luck, Lieutenant, that let us get off so lightly.” Roarke adjusted his eye patch with his left hand. “I am wondering, though, if we could not spare Urien to take the horses back and bring the prisoners with him as part of the bargain. He’s a good scout, I’ll grant him that, but he’s been damned mournful at seeing how the Bfiarasfiadi treated these horses in getting here. If he doesn’t like what he has seen so far, he surely will hate what he finds on the other side of the Ward Walls.”

  Taci agreed. “Urien is certainly distracted by how the horses have been mistreated. The fact is that we really should send a report back to the capital anyway, and he could take it with him to Imperial Plains.”

  The Aelf glanced over at where Nagrendra and Xoayya sat talking. “This is also the time to send Xoayya back.”

  I frowned. “Why do you say that?”

  “She did nothing in the fight yesterday.” Taci’s expression sharpened. “Had the Black Churchers not been malnourished and exhausted, she might have been killed. We know that nothing we see on the other side will be that easy to kill. She’s a burden we don’t need and one that will cause us problems.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “And with Urien gone, she’ll be the thirteenth member of our group, right?”

  The Aelf blushed. “We’re going into Chaos. There’s no need to take unnecessary risks.”

  Roarke frowned. “If we leave Urien behind, we’ll only be a dozen.”

  Taci pointed at Cruach. “What about the dog?”

  Roarke laughed harshly. “Only an idiot would count the dog. Forget your superstition. Xoayya, in case you’ve forgotten, warned us about the arrows. She’s part of our company, and that’s the end of that. Right, Lieutenant?”

  “Urien stays, Xoayya is going, and as much as I like Cruach, he doesn’t count. It’s a working plan.” Kit looked over at the other, larger fire. “I will tell Urien. The rest of us better get some sleep. We will cross into Chaos tomorrow.”

  As we had agreed since the beginning, we wanted to cross into Chaos near Gorecrag. This meant a half-day ride to the east, which no one minded at all. The idea of crossing here carried with it the possibility of running straight into the Bharasfiadi with whom we had already exchanged arrow volleys.

  Leaving Urien behind with the captives and their horses, we found a spot that, as nearly as we could reckon, would put us in the Gorecrag foothills when we crossed. Riding down into the valley, we watered our horses in the stream running through the meadow on our side of the Ward Walls. We all double-checked our gear and made certain our armor hung correctly. Weapons drawn, we rode toward the Ward Wall.

  Xoayya brought her horse up on my left. Wisps of red hair floated free of her cloak’s hood. The Wall’s opal light illuminated her face and made her look more like a ghost than a living person. Her broad smile banished that thought immediately, however, for nothing that had passed from life could possibly look so excited.

  “Xoayya, you really should wait. We don’t know what we will run into on the other side.”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Locke. Whatever is on the other side, whatever happens to me, it’s my destiny. Even if I drop dead on the other side, it will be because that is what is meant to happen. I don’t know if there is a good reason or a bad one for it, but I am ready to accept it.”

  The open innocence of her declaration surprised me and scared me a bit. “I hear what you are saying, but I’d really prefer it if you would hang back. Wait for some of us to get through before you cross. I don’t want your blood on my hands.”

  Xoayya reined her horse back. “As you wish, Locke. Understand this, though, whatever happens to me is beyond your capacity to control, change, or prevent. You and I differ in our thoughts about this, but I would not have you feel guilt over my fate.”

  “Thank you, Xoayya. I’ll see to it nothing happens to you for which I need to feel guilt.”

  I turned back to face the wall as Stail walked into the magickal barrier. He approached it as if it were nothing more than early-morning fog. I braced myself as its red, purple, and white lights shimmered over me. I felt a tingle all over my body, then warmth—a warmth that made me want to reconsider crossing.

  We pushed on and were rewarded by a sharp shock of cold. It hit me as I passed through to the other side—warning me of the dangers within Chaos. This is the cold of the grave, something I am likely to find here.

  Despite those dire thoughts, part of me scoffed at the warning. So this is Chaos. It feels as if I am home again!

  Before I could study my surroundings or figure out the feeling of familiarity that gripped me, an inhuman scream sounded from my left. I spun Stail to face it, expecting a Bharashadi ambush. I immediately feared Xoayya had followed me through and even now was being torn apart by a Black Shadow warrior.

  What I saw, though nowhere near that horrible, still sent ice flowing through my guts.

  The scream had come from Roarke. He clutched at his head as if trying to prevent it from exploding. The scream ended abruptly as he made it the rest of the way through the wall. Then Roarke slumped forward against his horse’s neck, slid from the saddle, and crumpled to the ground.

  22

  I

  leaped from Stail’s back and dropped to my knees beside Roarke’s body. I felt breath from his nose against my hand and a strong and steady pulse in his neck. “He’s alive.” I looked at him, tugging off the mailed hood he wore. “No blood from his ears or nose. What happened?”

  Tyrchon knelt on the other side of him while Hansen led Roarke’s horse away. “The Ward Walls affect people differently. If this happened when Roarke first went through, it would explain why he has be
en reluctant to return. Let us get him back on his horse and get him to First Stop Mansion. If he lives to get that far, we can consider what we will do with him then.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “Is it safe to move him?”

  Kit came over and crouched beside me. “Do you think it’s safer to leave him here?”

  Taci looked down at the both of us. “I don’t sense

  any lingering spell effects, so it wasn’t a magickal ambush. 1 don’t want to use diagnostic spells here in the open, but I can if you insist.”

  1 shook my head. “No, we don’t want to let the others find us that easily.”

  “And find us they will if we don’t get going.” Kit stood slowly. “Everyone else got through in good shape. We know the Bharashadi are in the area, so the only way to guarantee our safety is to move. Roarke may not survive the trip, but none of us will survive waiting here for him to recover.”

  “You’re right, of course.” I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Let’s move.”

  I grabbed one arm, and Tyrchon took the other. If Nagrendra had not gotten his legs, we would never have draped Roarke over the saddle. That accomplished, Tyrchon tied him in place and Hansen led the horse along, remaining in the middle of our formation for safety. Xoayya rode beside Roarke, reaching out to check his pulse from time to time.

  Roarke’s inexplicable problem undoubtedly colored how I saw Chaos, and it was probably a good thing, too. Throughout the whole trip I had been looking forward to leaving the womb. I wanted the distinction of having been to Chaos. 1 wanted the acceptance and camaraderie with the other Chaos Riders, and I wanted it as bad as a drunk wants liquor. In the Umbra I had been on the outside, and I hated it.

  Entering Chaos allowed me to understand why Riders felt a race apart from the other people in the Empire. We rode from winter prairies to warm, dry red-rock mountains. Unlike the Empire, greens and blues did not predominate here; instead reds and browns and purples made up the colors of the landscape. Verdant forests became hillsides filled with petrified trees and an undergrowth of bloody saw-edged grasses or purple prickly cactus-type plants. Rusty dust rose up from each hoof fall. The rocks, from some fist-sized stones to boulders as large as a wizard’s tower, dotted the landscape as if they were sentries opposing our invasion.