Before she could stab him again, he grabbed her wrist and squeezed it until she let go of the blade's handle.
"You're hurting me," she protested.
"I could say the same of you." As he spoke, he picked up the knife and threw it into the rocks at the edge of the beach.
A small but steady stream of blood oozed from what was luckily a minor wound. He stanched the flow with his thumb, jamming it over the cut.
"You do me an injustice," he said with more calm than she might have imagined possible from someone who had just been attacked. "I mean you no harm. I only wish to do what Kishpa has asked of me. And I'm afraid there isn't much time. He could die at any moment, and that would be the end of all of us."
She started to turn her back but appeared to think better of it. "Your brain must be addled," she objected.
"Please," he begged. "Think a moment. Imagine yourself in his place. You are part elven. You have lived another ninety-eight years, and the human you once loved has long since died. But you remember her well, thinking of her always. And now you lie near death. Except she, in your memory, is still young and full of life, just as you always pictured her, no matter how the years might have changed her. Wouldn't you, if you could, want that image to exist even if the mind that remembered it no longer lived? Wouldn't that, in your moment of passing, be a gift of love beyond anything you could ever imagine?" Brandella did not answer at once. Tears filled her eyes. "Yes," she finally said. "It would be a great act of love." Then she wiped her eyes and composed herself, saying, "It's a lovely thought, but it doesn't mean that what you're saying is true. You're asking me to leave the man I cherish for a string of pretty words." "Not for a string of pretty words," Tanis countered. "For love. Brandella," he whispered, finding it hard to say these words, "I yearn for the ideal that Kishpa has found. All my life I have craved what he once had with you. He grieves for its loss. I never had it, and I grieve even more that I may never know it." Brandella stared at him with luminescent eyes. Tanis drew from the inner pocket of his tunic a piece of once-colorful cloth that still held faded shades of red, yellow, and purple. He held it out to her. Brandella slowly took it from him and examined it. "It's my weave," she said shakily. Tanis nodded. She turned it over, hands unsteady face ashen. "It's a remnant of the same scarf I've been weaving for Kishpa these past few days. How can it be home, unfinished, and here, ancient and tattered7" One hand went to her mouth, lips trembling. Tanis only watched her closely. His heart went out to her in her confusion. "Kishpa gave this to you?" she asked, looking up. "As a token of his love." Tanis saw her eyes shift, and he knew. She believed.
18
The final attack
Bnandella broke away from Tanis and ran back toward the shack. The half-elf didn't know what to make of her reaction. Was she reeling with joy or despair7 Inside the cabin, Brandella stood with her longbow in hand and a quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder. "As soon as Reehsha returns, I am going to the barricades," she announced quietly but firmly. Yeblidod stirred in her bed at the sound but did not awaken. "But what of Kishpa's wish?" Tanis demanded from from the doorway. "Don't you understand? He may die any moment."
"I do understand," she fiercely countered. "But I will not go with you. Not now. It is this Kishpa that I love: the one on the barricades, fighting for his village. It is this Kishpa who made me, a human, feel at home in an elven village that I now love."
Sadness and anger vied for dominance on the weaver's face. Brandella had changed to an outfit more suitable for battle than the previous night's skirt and woven blouse-brown leggings the color of a doe's eyes, with an overshirt of deepest green. The costume added to her air of calm assurance. Once again, her self-confidence reminded Tanis of Kitiara.
"Understand me, Tanis," Brandella said firmly. "I was a mere girl floating in the wreckage of a slaveship that foundered in the Straits. The chains were still on my feet, their weight destined to pull me off the piece of hull that I clung to for life. If Kishpa had not had a vision of me during the storm, I would have perished. On rough seas, he sailed out to find me. To save me."
She looked away from Tanis, visibly embarrassed at what she was about to say. "At first I loved him out of gratitude. He treated me with kindness, taking pains to make sure his elven friends-and dwarves like Mertwig and Yeblidod-did not snub me because of my race. Then," she said boldly, gazing once again directly into Tanis's eyes, "he taught me how to learn so that I could teach myself. I learned to weave, to paint, to use a longbow… and finally, when I grew up, I learned to love him. And he loved me back.
"Now you ask me to abandon my mage," she continued in disbelief, shaking her head, "to abandon the Kishpa I know so well, because you say the old Kishpa has a wish. But I don't know the old Kishpa. I don't know how the years have changed him. I only know that my Kishpa would be terribly hurt if I left him now."
She shook her head as Tanis made a dissenting move. "Listen to me," she said. "He is weak from enchanting your sword. He would never admit it, but he is afraid for himself, for me, and for the village. If I desert him now, it will break his heart. How can I deserve the love of the Kishpa of the future if I abandon the Kishpa of the present?"
"You are eloquent in your devotion," Tanis said softly. "Still-"
She cut off his words with a commanding gesture. "Speak no morel" she ordered. "I will go with you when the battle is over. Not before. I will not let my Kishpa down when he needs me most. If what you say is true, and I am nothing more than a memory, I would not have my disappearance in his moment of need be his last remembrance of me."
"Then you will go with me when the battle is over?" Tanis asked.
She still hesitated. Then-"Yes." Decision was suddenly clear on her delicate features.
'Then I will accompany you to the barricades," he insisted. "I will fight alongside you and make sure-as best I can-that no harm befalls you. But whether the battle is won or lost, when it is over, I will take you with me."
"I will make sure-as best I can-that no harm befalls you, either," she said, flashing a sudden warm grin.*****
Fog hugged the shore, but most of the village basked in brilliant early-morning sunshine. Stone-fronted shops appeared deserted on each side. Tanis and Brandella hurriedly stepped down the empty streets, marking the sounds of battle from up ahead.
"It has begun," she said grimly.
They ran to the barricades, only to find the elven defenders panicking along the eastern wall. Hundreds shouted at Kishpa from every direction, begging him to do something before it was too late.
Clearly something terrible was happening. Tanis and Brandella climbed the ramparts, clambering their way toward Kishpa, who stood in plain view atop the barricade. When they reached the top, they saw what was driving the elves into a state of abject fear.
"By the gods!" Tanis exclaimed.
The human army had swelled to immense proportions, gaining reinforcements that easily numbered more than five thousand and perhaps as many as ten thousand.
"Where did they all come from?" Brandella wondered, squinting against the sun.
The enemy troops were virtually uncountable, charging toward Ankatavaka like an endless sea of humanity. Their numbers stretched in every direction, entering the open meadows on all three sides of the village. And they kept streaming out of the woods.
The elves didn't have enough arrows to kill this many humans, even if they hit their mark with every one let loose. The odds, they all realized, had become impossible. They were about to be overrun by an army that outnumbered them at least thirty to one.
Yet Tanis was surprised to find Kishpa, a figure in red robes boldly silhouetted against the eastern sky, calmly surveying the oncoming human horde. Tanis looked around for Scowarr and Mertwig, surprised that they were nowhere in sight.
Kishpa, having given Tanis a suspicious stare when the half-elf showed up with Brandella, finally answered his lover's question. 'They came," he said matter-of-factly, "from a spell, and that's how they s
hall perish."
"Are we imagining them?" asked Tanis.
Kishpa straightened his red robes, fluttering in the morning breezes. "No, it's a duplication spell," he explained. "Most of them are phantom reflections of a much smaller number of real soldiers."
"See there," Kishpa said, and indicated a young, blond human carrying a distinctive quiver tooled in blue and yellow. "Now look there, wading across the stream. And there." Tanis and Brandella followed his pointing finger. A blond warrior carried the same quiver across a creek; not 30 yards from that soldier, a duplicate warrior hurried past a tree.
Kishpa looked pleased with himself, his relaxed smile contrasting. "They might have fooled me," he admitted, "but they overdid it, duplicating far too many soldiers. It made me suspicious, and so I looked more closely. That's when I noticed that too many of them are dressed exactly the same, are holding their bows in the same way, and are running in perfect step with each other. That's when I knew.
'The spell, by the way, is rudimentary," he added, "but I've never seen it done on such a grand scale. There must be at least a half-dozen magic-users in the human camp. If this spell is any indication of their power, none of them are terribly advanced, but, combined, they can come up with very powerful magic."
"Are you strong enough to stop them?" Brandella asked worriedly, putting her arm around the mage. Her brown eyes gazed warmly into his blue ones; Tanis looked away.
"I don't know," the mage replied candidly. "I need to husband my magic, so I must counterattack with a spell that is relatively simple."
"I hope you have something in mind," Tanis said irritably, "because, reflections or not, they're getting awfully close."
"If either Scowarr or Mertwig does his job, then we just might-ah, just in time!" the mage exclaimed, pointing down to just inside the village gate. Little Shoulders skidded to a halt below, holding a small metal box in his hands.
"Open the gate!" Kishpa ordered.
"No!" cried a chorus of elven defenders. The ones who didn't reply looked fearfully at the dissenters but did not move.
"Do as I say!" the mage commanded angrily.
No one moved. Tanis, Kishpa, and Brandella looked into a sea of re- 133 calcitrant, almond-eyed faces. With an oath, Tanis jumped down off the barricade and raced across the cobblestones to the gate. He reached for the pulley rope and was about to yank down on it when, just above him on the battlement, a fearful elf with a knife tried to cut the rope. Instead, Brandella sent an arrow flying through the elf's sleeve, pinning it to the battlement wall.
Tanis hauled on the pulley rope; then, as the gate swung open, the half-elf bowed to the weaver up above. She inclined her head and winked.
Once the gate was open, the mage shouted to Scowarr, "Open your box and empty it onto the ground just outside. Then get back in. And you, Tanis, close the gate!"
Scowarr and Tanis did as they were told.
The human horde was fast closing in, covering the open field between the woods and the village. The sound of their charge was deafening, but Kishpa concentrated on his spell, repeating the same strange words over and over again.
Nothing seemed to be happening-until a terrified cry howled from the front lines of the human army.
19
A Spell upon you
There were моrе screams from the humans as Tanis scrambled back to the top of the barricade. The half-elf recoiled from the scene below. A giant spider, with scabrous, long legs and an eager mandible, was turning the humans in its path into masses of slashed and bleeding flesh. The human reflections of those who were killed or injured took on the same bloody countenance as the originals, so scores seemed to fall in agony. The creature killed silently, but the din of the victims was deafening. Brandella turned from the sight with a horrified cry; many of the elves reacted in the same way. It wasn't long before the very sight of the hideous creature sent the real soldiers into a headlong retreat, their duplicates instantly following. Those humans who were farther away, however, nocked their arrows and sent them flying in the direction of the gigantic spider.
A rain of wildly aimed arrows filled the air, and, perhaps fearing that they might kill the creature, Kishpa continued jabbering away in a long-forgotten tongue, murmuring sounds that Tanis suspected only Raistlin would have known and understood.
Kishpa, with what Tanis realized was a fine sense of justice, used the same duplication'spell as had his human counterparts. As the mage's words became more intense, the screams from below grew to a soul-shattering extreme as the humans suddenly found themselves facing a growing army of giant spiders.
Spiders will avoid a fight unless they feel threatened and sense that they have no choice. With the barricades behind them, they had only one direction in which they could easily go. And from that direction came painful arrows and thousands of swarming humans.
With the spiders constantly churning their scaly legs in a field of men, it became virtually impossible to tell which of the spiders was the original and which were the magic duplicates. Slaying the right spider might have ended the humans' ordeal, but they had to fight all of them at the same time. Arrows from the elven barricades made the trial that more hellish for the soldiers.
The human army, both real and unreal, fled as one. They turned like ships on a stormy sea, twisting in one wave and then tacking as if with the wind. Feasting on human blood, the real spider followed after them, hungry for more. And the rest of the duplicate monsters followed in a macabre dance of dozens of thin, long, sharp-edged legs that skittered across the open meadow like so many nightmares. The humans were routed.
The elves on the barricades cried with joy at their deliverance. The chant of "Kishpa!" went up among them, echoing into the morning sky.
For his own part, the mage stood slumped against Brandella's shoulder, exhausted. Supporting her lover, the weaver sent Tanis a look that seemed to say, "See? I told you he would need me," and Tanis nodded shortly. A handful of grateful villagers rushed up to their mage and carried him down on their shoulders, Brandella following. The rest of the elves danced on the barricades, showing little of their notorious elven reserve.
"We must have a feast!" cried Canpho, the healer, rushing around the main square on his stubby legs.
"Yes, a feast!" echoed the elves, rushing down from the battlements.
"We must send for the women to come home to us!" shouted Canpho. "We have been saved by great magic!"
The cheering thundered, and Kishpa, his face etched with weariness, nonetheless glowed in their praise. No wonder, Tanis thought, that the mage would remember this moment in all its detail years later.
"Come, we will build bonfires on the beach!" declared Canpho. "Let everyone find whatever food they can spare. We will share our meager stores in victory."
The barricades emptied, and the elves of the village carried Kishpa along in a daze of happiness.
Scowarr stayed behind with Tanis. The slender human had switched back into yesterday's rags-minus the bandages-no doubt to preserve his new finery.
"Why aren't you going with them?" the half-elf asked.
"Yesterday I was their hero," he complained, sulking.
Tanis smiled at his all-too-human friend. "Elves are not as fickle as humans, Scowarr. They won't forget what you did. But right now Kishpa deserves his praise. Don't be jealous of him."
"Who said I was jealous?" Little Shoulders demanded defiantly.
Tanis didn't answer. A strange, loud scratching had captured his attention. It seemed to be coming from somewhere behind him. He looked over his shoulder and staggered back in horror at the sight. A long, thin, bloody spider's leg was looping over the barricade wall!
"I'm not jealous at all," Scowarr went on petulantly. "I'm surprised you would actually think-"
Tanis reached out and grabbed Little Shoulders by the collar and spun him around.
Scowarr paled as he watched another leg appear. "It's not possible," said the human in tremulous disbelief.
A
nother leg came over the wall. Then another. The barricade shifted under the weight, groaning as if in anticipation of the horror to come, as the spider pressed down on its forward legs. The grotesque body of the creature suddenly came into view, its back legs swinging forward, as it steadied itself on the top of the battlement.
A moment later, long, bloodsoaked, razor-sharp spider legs began appearing all along the barricade walls. On every side, the legs appeared, clawing, reaching, climbing. Up they came, the duplicate spiders following their master, a vision of death that moved inexorably down the barricades.
"I feel like a fly," Scowarr mumbled.
"You'll taste like one, too," Tanis answered.
"Now he makes jokes."
The half-elf drew his enchanted sword, the blade glowing red. Scowarr began to follow suit, pulling his own broadsword from its scabbard. "No," said Tanis, stopping the human before the sword was free of its sheath. "Go for help. I have my eye on the real spider, and if I can keep it at bay, the duplicates will not go forward."
"You can't fight it alone," Scowarr insisted.
Tanis was moved, even as he prepared to fight. "You have broad shoulders, my friend," he said. "Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. But you can help me best by doing as I ask. Get Kishpa now. The spider will not wait while we debate."
Still Scowarr wavered. "I don't know if I should go."
Tanis swung around, putting the tip of his blade at Scowarr's throat. "Now do you know7"
Scowarr blinked. "Uh… yes."
'Then go!"
The human did as Tanis ordered, scampering as fast as his legs would carry him in the direction in which the villagers had gone.
The massive spider, touched by magic, sensed the presence of Kishpa's magic in the glowing red metal of Tanis's sword; this was danger. The spider rubbed its horrific legs, and a screeching, scratching sound pierced the air. It was a call, Tanis realized, to its duplicates to form a protective circle around it. They rushed toward their master in a flurry of skittering legs.
Tanis the shadow years (d2-3) Page 11
