More importantly, the ganglia there in the elbow sent a numbing jolt that left the reaver hissing in fury, briefly stunned.
In that infinitesimal portion of a second, Raj Ahten’s work began. He had to find a second target. If the monster roared, it would open its mouth wide enough so that he might leap in between its deadly teeth, strike up through the soft palate into the reaver’s brain.
On the other hand, if the reaver backed away in panic, he’d get a blow between the thoracic plates at its soft underbelly, where he might disembowel the beast.
The monster did neither. The reaver lowered its head and struck blindly through its pain. It swung the glory hammer down viciously, lurching, trying to win past Raj Ahten.
Raj Ahten ducked aside as fifteen tons of monster surged overhead. Even with thousands of endowments of brawn, he could not afford to take a hit from a reaver, for though his endowments of brawn strengthened his muscle, they did nothing to strengthen bones. Even the most casual blow from a reaver would shatter his bones like kindling.
The reaver slammed down its glory hammer, cutting a vicious arc, putting all the power of its good right foreclaws into the blow. The frowth giant shoved harder on its great staff, trying to press the reaver back, and the frowth turned its head and blinked.
In that moment, Raj Ahten glanced up at his giant. The thing was spattered with the red blood of men and the inky blue-black blood of reavers, fouling its fur. It had taken a hit from a reaver’s blade earlier, so that a rent showed in its chain mail, and the frowth’s own blood added to the mix, matted and fly-covered in its golden fur.
Perhaps blood loss had weakened the frowth, for though the giants were normally tireless, this one saw the blow coming and did little to avoid it, merely shoving meekly with its staff and blinking its great silver eyes as it turned aside.
The glory hammer swiped down, smashing into the frowth’s snout, shattering bones and teeth. Blood and gore rained upon Raj Ahten.
Enraged, Raj Ahten struck down with his battle-axe, taking off the two front toes of the reaver’s left foreleg. As the reaver’s head spun to snap at him, Raj Ahten leapt past its jaws into its mouth, rolled once over its raspy tongue, and aimed a savage blow up into the monster’s soft palate.
His axe blade met flesh, scored deeply as it ran between two plates of bone, slicing a cut as long as a man’s arm deep into the cleft above the jaw. As the blade cleared, Raj Ahten pulled it back up and in. The long spike on the reverse side of his axe scored deep into the monster’s brain.
Raj Ahten was already diving from the reaver’s mouth before the blood and brains began gushing from the wound. The monster would die, but so would Raj Ahten’s giant.
The frowth reeled back from the battle, staggered into some warriors behind, and fell upon half a dozen men, crushing them.
Raj Ahten glanced about to see if his men needed help. Most of his men fought in teams—four or five men to a reaver. Dressed as they were in yellow surcoats, they looked to Raj Ahten like wasps trying to bring down larger prey with their multitude of stingers.
Now, on Bone Hill, the fell mage’s snarling curse ended, and her dark command rolled toward the city. Raj Ahten wondered briefly if the fell mage merely toyed with him.
If she can force us to cower in fear, or strike us blind, why does she not kill us outright? It could not be harder to make a wind that would poison men than to utter these commands.
Raj Ahten could only wonder. It had been sixteen centuries since her kind last attacked. He imagined that she was enamored of her new spells, sought to learn which was most effective.
The fell mage’s dark wind struck. Atop the walls, men cried out and covered their noses, and Raj Ahten could not immediately see any effect.
It was not until the scent hit him that he understood. His mouth went dry, and—as one—every pore in his skin began to exude sweat. Tears streamed from his eyes. He fought an overwhelming urge to urinate, and around him he saw weaker men lose control of their bladders.
He felt her command, even as he fought it: “Be thou dry as dust.”
A hundred yards behind Raj Ahten, Feykaald stood behind the battle lines on the steps of an inn and croaked, “O Great One, a word!”
Raj Ahten called to his Invincibles to close ranks and raced out of the battle, across the green, to the steps of the inn.
He glanced back. Reavers had crawled atop the mound of their dead, and now one prepared to slide into battle. Raj Ahten glanced at the walls, estimated that three quarters of his Invincibles had already died in this slaughter. He had fewer than four hundred left.
Atop the walls, reavers were battling men. Raj Ahten pulled out a file and began to sharpen his axe blade. He needed no oil for his file. Reaver’s blood worked well enough.
“Speak,” Raj Ahten said to Feykaald.
The old counselor worked his mouth, as if fighting back a choking dust. A sheen of sweat dripped from him as he spoke furtively in Raj Ahten’s ear. “Boat arrived. East shore … secure. Our men found reavers, but slew them.”
Raj Ahten wiped the sweat from his brow. It was pouring from him, making a sop of his tunic, slicking his hands. Rivulets threaded down his cheeks and into his beard. He drew the file over his axe blade, top to bottom, half a dozen times. As he worked, he studied his crumbling defenses on the walls.
His vassals fought in vain.
The rent in the wall was growing quickly. Half of his artillery outposts were gone. Reavers fought atop the wall. One flameweaver was dead, the others were dwindling from exhaustion despite the fact that Carris was in flames.
His tawny-furred giants fought savagely, but only thirty had survived the retreat from Longmot. They were dying fast. Even as he watched, a blow from a reaver’s blade split the skull of one giant, caught another in the back above his stubby tail.
And as the reavers battered the walls of Carris, they widened the breach, so that Raj Ahten’s forces were now spread too thin to effectively block the reavers’ efforts. Few of Paldane’s lords had enough endowments left to fight a reaver. They struggled beside Raj Ahten’s men, but their feeble efforts availed little.
Carris would fall despite all that he could do. It was not a matter of hours—it was a matter of moments.
Commoners cried out as the black wind wrung tears and sweat from them. Some fainted.
Ten minutes of this might leave a man dead, Raj Ahten feared. In only one way had his luck held. A light wind was blowing from the east, across the lake, and it seemed to Raj Ahten to ameliorate the effects of the fell mage’s spells.
Raj Ahten finished sharpening his axe. A reaver came barreling down, sliding over the slope of carnage. A frowth giant nearby bellowed as the reaver’s greatsword struck through its neck. The giant lurched sideways and collapsed on a pair of Invincibles, and the reaver leapt into battle, the first swing of its blade striking through four men.
Raj Ahten made his grim choice. His men were dying. He had fewer than four hundred Invincibles left with which to fight, and fighting at all was in vain.
This battle would be lost, but he dared not lose the remnants of his army with it.
There would be other battles, other days.
It was not cowardice that drove him to the decision, but the cold certainty that he did what—in the long term—was best. He’d not sacrifice his men to save the lives of his enemies.
“Prepare the flotilla,” Raj Ahten told Feykaald. “My flameweavers and Invincibles will take the first boats, my archers next. Spread the word.”
Raj Ahten sprinted back into the fray.
53
THE EARTH’S PAIN
How can I save them all? Gaborn wondered for what seemed the hundredth time that afternoon as he rode for Carris. He galloped fast now. A cool drizzle fell from leaden skies. Few lords rode horses that were able to keep pace: the wizard Binnesman, Queen Herin the Red, her daughter, Sir Langley, and two dozen others.
He felt the fist of doom closing upon the messengers he’d
sent to Carris. The Earth warned Gaborn of danger not just for himself, but for everyone who rode to Carris.
The force horses had thundered across the green fields of Beldinook. Gaborn made excellent time—he’d traveled nearly three hundred miles in six hours. But not everyone was able to follow at Gaborn’s pace. He’d ridden into Beldinook with hundreds of lords at his back. Now, many of them had dropped from the race. His troops were strung out for hundreds of miles behind. The few who remained close rode horses that were spent. Some mounts were dead on their feet, but Gaborn dared not slow. His own Days had fallen behind hours ago, and Gaborn wondered if the man’s horse had wearied, or if he feared to travel where Gaborn was heading.
The overwhelming aura of death that surrounded so many of Gaborn’s people was suffocating. Gaborn had ridden over the battlefield at Longmot a week ago, seen thousands of good men that Raj Ahten had killed. He’d smelled the charred corpses, the blood and bile. He’d found his own father dead, cold as the snow he’d clutched in his empty hands.
Yet he’d not felt those deaths waiting to happen. He’d not been aware of the final moments of those men in the way he now felt the final moments of those around him.
How can I save them all? he wondered.
He felt Borenson riding into danger now, and Gaborn spoke a warning for Borenson’s ears. “Flee!”
As he rode fifteen miles north of Carris, the wizard Binnesman raced beside him and shouted, “A moment’s rest, milord. It won’t do us any good to reach Carris on mounts that cannot fight.”
Gaborn could hardly hear the man over the thundering of horses’ hooves.
“Milord!” Langley shouted, adding his plea to Binnesman’s. “Five minutes, please!”
Ahead, a pond beckoned to the right of the road. Fish were rising, snapping at mosquitoes. Cattle had come here to drink often, had churned the bank to mud near the road.
Gaborn reined in his horse, let it go to the water.
A pair of mallards began quacking and flew up from some cattails, circled Gaborn and the pond, then winged to the east. In no time at all, mosquitoes were gathering around Gaborn, and he slapped them away from his face.
Sir Langley let his horse drink not twenty paces off, on the far side of Binnesman. Langley grinned at Gaborn. “By the Powers,” he said. “If I’d known that I’d have to contend with so many mosquitoes, I’d have worn plate!”
Gaborn was in no mood for jests. He looked back as a few lords straggled to a stop, made a quick count.
Gaborn had no army at his back. Just twenty knights. Worthy lords out of Orwynne, Fleeds, and Heredon. Gaborn’s Days was nowhere to be seen.
He did not have an army—just a few people brave enough and foolish enough to follow him to their deaths.
Gaborn felt certain that Castle Carris and its inhabitants could not stand another hour.
Gone were the troops he’d hoped to gain from King Lowicker. The men behind him would be of no use. He’d hoped to find one of his own armies, or perhaps the Knights Equitable that High Marshal Skalbairn had promised.
It does not matter, Gaborn told himself. I do not know what Raj Ahten is up to, but I will ride to him and demand surrender or give him his death.
Binnesman’s mount stood and drank, taking draughts of water in great gasps. Gaborn got out his feed bag and held up a last double handful of miln for his horse to eat. The warhorse whickered gratefully at Gaborn. It chewed the sweet oats, malt, and molasses quickly. Its eyes looked dull and tired.
Gaborn wiped his sticky hands on his tunic afterward, and Binnesman must have seen Gaborn’s worried expression, for he asked softly, “What troubles you, milord?”
Night was falling, the last full rays of sunlight streamed through some broken clouds. The wind off the pond blew cold in Gaborn’s face.
He spoke softly, not wanting to be heard by the lords who were still converging on the watering hole. “We’re riding into great danger. I have been wondering: How can I set a value on the lives of others? How can I Choose one man above another?”
“Choosing isn’t hard,” Binnesman said. “It’s not Choosing that pains you.”
“But how can I set a value on the lives of others?”
“Time and again you’ve shown me that you hold life precious,” Binnesman answered. “You value most people even more than they value themselves.”
“No,” Gaborn said. “My people love life.”
“Perhaps,” Binnesman said. “But just as you try to shield your weaker subjects with your own life, any man in this company”—he nodded to those lords who were closing in behind—“would give his life for another.”
He was right. Gaborn would gladly give his life in service to others. He’d die nobly for them in battle, live nobly for them in times of peace.
“What is really bothering you?” Binnesman asked.
Hoping that no one else would hear, Gaborn whispered, “The Earth came to me in a dream, and has threatened to chastise me. It has warned that I must Choose the seeds of humanity, and nothing more.”
Binnesman focused completely on Gaborn now, frowning in apparent horror. The Earth Warden drew close. “Beware, milord. If the Earth chose to speak to you in a dream, it is only because you are too preoccupied to listen when you are awake. Now, tell me exactly, what did the Earth warn you against?”
“Against… Choosing too widely,” Gaborn said. “The Earth appeared in the form of my dead father, and warned me that I must learn to accept death.”
Gaborn dared not admit that he had not yet come to terms with his father’s death. The Earth asked something that was impossible for him.
The Earth had warned Gaborn that he needed to narrow his scope, to Choose only the best seeds of humanity to save through the dark season to come.
But who were the best?
Those he loved the most? Not always.
Those who contributed most to the world? Was one man’s art of more value than a baker’s skill at baking bread, or a humble peasant woman’s love for her children?
Should he Choose those who could fight best in his behalf, and thus best defend his people?
How could Gaborn set a value on life? He’d seen into the hearts of his people, and now it seemed that the gift of Earth Sight was as much a burden as a boon.
He’d seen into the hearts of others, and knew that old men loved life more fiercely than youths who should have treasured their days.
He saw into the hearts of others and seldom found men to be as virtuous as he hoped. The best soldiers, the men he most wanted as warriors, often did not value life. Too many of them were brutal creatures who loved blood and domination. Far too seldom did a virtuous man wield a sword.
Far too often Gaborn looked into the hearts of men and, as with King Lowicker, found the sight unbearable.
How then could he turn away from a simple person who deserved life, but had little to offer: babes and clubfooted boys and grandmothers tottering on the edge of doom.
Binnesman said solemnly, in a whisper that no one else nearby would hear, “You are in grave danger, milord. Those who serve the Earth must do so with perfect complicity. If you do not serve the Earth, it will withdraw your powers.”
Binnesman studied Gaborn for a long moment, frowning. “Perhaps I am at fault,” he said. “When you gained the power of Choosing, I told you to be generous. I should have warned you that a great danger also lies in being too generous. You may have to give up some that you have Chosen…. Is that what you feel?”
Gaborn closed his eyes, gritted his teeth. At this moment, he could not accept death.
“Milord!” Sir Langley shouted, and he pointed toward the crest of a rounded hill a couple of hundred yards to the south.
Up there, a brown vapor stole over the fields, creeping over the hill like a grass fire, moving at about the pace that a man could walk. But no smoke rose from that fire, no flames burned within it.
Instead, grasses and low shrubs hissed and wilted in gray ruin. The creeping
line of brown smoke hit a great oak, and part of the bark on it shattered and split. Its leaves turned a sickly hue and began to drop. Even the mistletoe hanging in its limbs hissed and writhed. The bachelor’s buttons at the oak’s base went from vivid blue to dullest gray in seconds.
Then the fog of destruction blew downhill.
Binnesman frowned, stroked his short beard.
Gaborn stared at the lurking mist in growing horror. “What is that?” he ventured.
“I… don’t know,” Binnesman said. “It may be a blasting spell of some kind, but I’ve never heard of one so powerful.”
“Is it dangerous to people?” Gaborn asked. “Will it kill the horses?”
Binnesman mounted his horse and rode toward the hill. Gaborn hurried to the wizard’s side, loathing the touch of that desecrating fog.
When Gaborn reached the brown haze, he smelled death and putrefaction. He immediately felt corruption around him. Even with his endowments, breathing that mist weakened every muscle. His head reeled, and Gaborn sat in his saddle, sickened to the core of his soul. He could only imagine how the mist would affect commoners.
“Ah!” he cried as he drew near Binnesman.
He looked at the wizard to see its effect on him, and Binnesman suddenly seemed older than before, the creases in his face etched more deeply, his skin grayer. He bent over in his saddle, like a frail and devastated man.
Behind Gaborn, his men left off caring for their mounts and rode up behind the King. Gaborn watched their reaction to the mist. To his surprise, they did not seem as devastated by the mist as he and Binnesman were.
“Forgive me for doubting you, my King,” Binnesman said hoarsely before the others could arrive. “You were right to insist on riding to Carris. Your powers of perception are growing, and have surpassed even mine. We must strike down whatever is causing this defilement.”
Gaborn crested the hill and stared south in apprehension. In the distance, whole forests lay denuded. Skeletal branches raked the sky. Steam curled in thin wisps from gray mounds of grass.
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