In that instant, a small figure rose up from beneath a fallen log near Hadissa, a woman with silver hair flying in the wind. She moved with blinding speed. She raced to Hadissa, reached into his scabbard with one hand, grasped his sword as she passed, sent it flying end over end into the mist and driving rain-
It struck Asgaroth’s chest. For a long moment, Asgaroth sat in seeming astonishment, gazing down at the blade that impaled him.
Fallion’s heart pounded as he watched for a reaction. Asgaroth was a Runelord, drawing power through dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of endowments.
There were stories of men who had taken so much stamina that they could hardly be killed. They could fight on in battle with arms hacked off, trailing their own guts, and live to tell the tale.
It seemed improbable that Asgaroth could be defeated with a single blow from a sword, and Fallion half expected him to come shrieking into battle, drawing the blade that transfixed him as if pulling it from a fleshly scabbard, then wreaking havoc upon them all.
But blood gurgled from Asgaroth’s mouth. The sword seemed to have pierced his lung, perhaps even cleaving his heart in half.
He leaned his head back and a scream issued from his throat. It became louder and louder, a death cry that shook the heavens; a plume of bloody air spewed out of his throat, went swirling skyward.
Suddenly the wind grew in ferocity. The cry rose from a scream to a rumbling roar. Blood spewed skyward; Asgaroth seemed to explode, his arms and torso ripping away like worn cloth, and a huge wind gusted up, a vortex that rose and rose into a towering tornado that lifted his horse from the ground, sucked up nearby trees, and pulled tufts of grass and dirt into the medley.
An elemental of air, Fallion realized.
Asgaroth had been a servant of Air, a wind-driven wizard, and thus had an elemental within him.
The more powerful the sorcerer, the greater the elemental. The creature rising up now was monumental.
The wind screamed around them, whirling madly, as if the heavens themselves were coming to life, as if the sky would split in half. Asgaroth’s troops and the strengi-saats shouted and tried to rush away from the vortex.
The wind tore the voices of men and monsters away, so that their cries came from a seeming distance, like the cries of gulls far out to sea, and Fallion saw more than one strengi-saat whirl up into the maelstrom, snarling and shrieking as it was torn asunder.
Quickly the tornado grew, its base remaining on the ground while its top whirled up into the slate gray clouds, lost to sight, where suddenly even the clouds whirled and turned green and lightning crackled and shone like a crown.
Many men and creatures ran for their lives, but Iome was the fastest of them, and she raced now, a Runelord in the height of her power, leaping ten yards to a stride. In five bounds she raced down the bank and hit the water, then tried to run across it, her feet a blur. But she didn’t have enough endowments of metabolism, and by the time that she was three-quarters of the way across the river, she floundered, bobbed underwater, and an instant later shot up at the side of the boat and pulled herself in.
Meanwhile, Myrrima was shouting to Borenson, “Grab the pole,” as she tried fishing him from the river. The boat had beached, but the current was dragging Borenson downstream.
Groggily, Borenson cursed and sputtered, trying to make it to the boat. Fallion gaped in surprise, supposing that Borenson had been killed by the lightning.
Fallion raced to the gunwale and grabbed Borenson’s cape, tried pulling him in, but Borenson wore ring mail beneath his tunic, and Fallion could hardly budge him. It wasn’t until Iome grasped Borenson that they were able to drag him into the boat.
By then, the tornado had reached its full height, and now it thundered toward them, making the earth rumble, pulling whole trees up by their roots, slinging boulders across the ground.
The wind surged, singing past Fallion’s ears, tugging his clothes, slapping his face.
Several of Asgaroth’s warriors were racing toward the boat, and now they looked back in horror as the tornado overtook them, plucked them up kicking and screaming, their arms waving in the air, bearing them into the heavens.
This is the end, Fallion thought.
He suddenly became conscious that Rhianna was grasping onto his leg, as if to hold on to him for support. Talon clutched her baby sister and hunched over protectively, while all of the other children screamed in fear.
The only one who showed no fear was Myrrima. She calmly picked up her bow, drew an arrow from the quiver at her back, and fired into the broiling tempest.
The bolt flew true, singing into the funnel cloud.
What is she thinking? Fallion wondered. An arrow won’t help.
But the wind suddenly roared like a wounded animal and grew in fury. Dark dirt surged up, blackening the funnel cloud.
To Fallion’s utter amazement, the tornado stopped in its course, leapt in the air, and reeled backward over the land, only to touch down a quarter of a mile away, where it plucked up trees and dirt and hurled them in its fury.
It blurred away, at dozens of miles per hour.
In mere seconds it was gone.
He peered at Myrrima in awe, recalled how she had washed her arrows in water at dawn.
She must have cast a powerful spell indeed, Fallion realized.
The world seemed to go still. Fallion could hear the roar of the tornado in the distance, could even feel the rumble through the soles of his shoes, but nearby there wasn’t a sound.
And above, the clouds shattered like glass, and to Fallion’s delight, the sun burst through clear and strong, its rays slanting in through rain. Suddenly the most brutal gray clouds he had ever seen became nothing but a backdrop for a brilliant rainbow.
Everyone just stood or sat on the boat, breathing heavily, Talon weeping in relief, Borenson looking up at the skies in wonder, Iome laughing and sniffing.
It was in such circumstances that a warhorn blew a moment later, and some of Mystarria’s own troops came rushing along the riverbank.
Dozens of Asgaroth’s men had escaped, along with no small number of strengi-saats. Many of the enemy troops had crawled into thickets seeking shelter, and all along the riverbank the Mystarrians engaged whatever enemy they could find, dragged them from their hiding holes, and put them to the sword. They sang a battle song as they slew.
“We are born to blood and war,
Like our fathers were, a thousand years before.
Sound the horn. Strike the blow!
Down to grief or glory go!”
Myrrima looked out upon the slaughter, and whispered, “I never knew that such rough old hawks could sing so beautifully.”
But Fallion watched it all in dismay, for he could still feel the fiery ants marching across his chest with tiny feet of wind, and he wondered.
Am I cursed?
13
THE CURSE
No man can fully know the mind of a locus. We are not capable of that much evil.
— Gaborn Val Orden
It was Chancellor Waggit who led the troops. Moments later he reached the riverbank, riding a rangy mountain pony bred for hunting more than war. He had fought a bloody battle and managed to rout most of Asgaroth’s rear guard, but rather than turn and fight, Asgaroth had elected to forge ahead with the best of his scouts and engage Iome.
As Waggit’s men finished the skirmish and hunted among the dead for the spoils of war, Myrrima poled the boat to the far bank, so that the children could get out on the rocks. Fallion smelled the air. The bridge of his nose seemed to burn with the scent of evil.
It’s the curse, he thought, and he leapt out of the boat, knelt on some rounded stones, and tried to scrub the scent off from himself, washing his hands in the bone-chilling water first, then his chest, and finally his face.
Waggit strolled down from the fields bringing a helmeted head as a trophy of war, the head of Fallion’s enemy. The head was grisly, blood dribbling from the neck, so that Wagg
it held the thing at arm’s length, lest the gore splash upon his boots.
Fallion climbed up the riverbank, finding a path on a muskrat trail, and made his way through cattails to his mother.
Waggit held out the head, turned the face toward Iome, and her mouth went wide with surprise. “Celinor Anders…?”
Fallion looked at the gore-covered face, then back up at his mother. “Who?”
Iome blinked. “I…I had thought that it would be old King Anders, that he was the one we fought. But it was Celinor, his son. He was once a friend to your father, one of the Chosen. I thought that he was a good man.”
The sense of betrayal was palpable. Fallion could think of nothing to say.
Waggit said, “He’s not the first good man to turn to evil.”
Iome closed her eyes, wondering what had led Celinor to this. She threw the head down in anger, hurt by his betrayal. “Leave it here, to be gnawed by the foxes.”
Waggit reached out a hand, and Fallion heard the tinkle of jewelry as he set something in Iome’s palm. She shoved the items in her pocket before Fallion could see.
“Is it over?” Fallion asked. “Is Asgaroth dead for sure?”
Iome looked at her son, perplexed, while a ragged bit of wayward rain spattered across her face. A shadow fell over them, and she realized that the break in the clouds was sealing back up.
“He’s dead,” Iome said. “Celinor is dead. But the evil that drove him is not. It existed long before he was born and will live long after. There was a creature inside him, a being of pure evil, called a locus. It’s gone now, but it will find another host. It can live inside a man like a parasite. The name of the locus is Asgaroth. It will return, in time, when it finds a suitable host, a person of sufficient malice, one with enough power so that it can gather minions to do its bidding. So Asgaroth is not dead. Nor do I think that it can ever die.”
Fallion tried to comprehend this, but it was so far outside his experience that his mind rebelled.
Yet as he wondered, he had a strange notion: Asgaroth was my enemy before I was born. Is he bound up in my purpose? Did I come to destroy him? Can he be destroyed?
He looked up to his mother. “How can you tell if a man has a locus in him?”
Iome shook her head. “Your father could tell. He could look into a man’s heart and see the darkness there. But common folk like you and me, we can only guess.”
Fallion still felt the tiny ants marching across his chest, so he tried to wipe them away. His mother spotted the gesture, reached out, stopped his hand, then gingerly held her fingers near his chest.
“There’s movement there,” she said softly, “a stirring of the wind, invisible runes…” Her voice was thick with worry. She looked over to the river. “Myrrima?”
Myrrima was standing in the water beside the boat. She came out of the river gracefully, as if the water flowed away from her feet, clearing her path. Rhianna and the children stayed behind, sitting on the gunwale.
When Myrrima neared, Iome asked, “What do you make of this?” She placed Myrrima’s hand near Fallion’s chest.
Myrrima felt the tiny runes, frowning just a bit, but after a moment she covered his chest with her wet palm, smashing the runes, and smiled. “Nothing. There is nothing here that can harm you,” she told Fallion. “Asgaroth tried to curse you, but he doesn’t have that kind of power.”
“But he said I would start wars-” Fallion began to argue.
“Don’t let it trouble you,” Myrrima said. “He spoke many things that do not make sense. He said that he bound you by the Power of the One Rune, but the One Rune was destroyed ages ago, and when it burst, the One True World shattered into a thousand thousand shadow worlds. The power to bind was lost. And if Asgaroth were ever to regain it, he would bind the worlds into one once again, bind them to himself, and thus hold us all in thrall.”
She sounded so certain, so right. And with her touch, the runes of air had broken.
“Are you sure?” Fallion begged.
“Asgaroth only wants to frighten you,” Myrrima assured him. “That is how he wields his powers. You saw that.”
Iome cut in. “You showed him that you don’t fear him, so he wants you to fear yourself, fear the evil that you might do.”
“She’s right,” Myrrima said. “Because you are both brave and decent, you do not fear evil in others as much as you fear it in yourself. Asgaroth knows that you will fight him, so he tried to instill within you a fear of battle. There is nothing more to it. Rest easy.”
But Fallion couldn’t rest easy. He imagined himself leading vast armies to war, armies of men drunk on the blood of slaughter, butchers who reveled in murder, and the vision seemed too alarming to lay aside.
Myrrima reached up. With a wet finger, she drew a rune upon Fallion’s forehead, and all of his worries, all of his fears, seemed to lift from him like a heavy mantle. So powerful was the sense of release that he tried to recall what it was that had concerned him, but his mind could not seem to hold the memory for the moment.
Asgaroth. Something about Asgaroth?
Iome reached into her pocket and pulled out a silver cape pin. It was an owl with golden eyes, wings outstretched in flight, as if it were winging toward him. Fallion had never seen anything so marvelous. Inscribed upon the silver wings were tiny feathers so realistic that the owl looked almost alive. To heighten this, its golden eyes had amber pupils that seemed to fix upon Fallion. It was elegant, simple and beautiful, marvelous to behold.
“You should have this,” his mother said, “a trophy of your first battle.”
Fallion recognized the piece. Asgaroth had worn it when he came against the castle gates. Fallion was hesitant to touch anything that Asgaroth had worn. Yet there was something odd about the pin. The workmanship was finer than anything that Fallion had ever seen. Even the ancient duskins, with their cunning hands and love for silver, had never made anything so fine in detail. Instinctively Fallion suspected that this was some charm crafted in the netherworld. It was too beautiful to have been formed by human hands.
“Take it,” Myrrima said. “No harm can come of it. Can’t you feel that? Even Asgaroth’s touch could not sully its power. It was made by bright Ones. And I’m sure that that is why Asgaroth took it. They would have loathed for him to have it.”
Fallion reached out for it. As he clasped it, an image came to his mind, an enormous gray owl with a wingspan much wider than a man is tall, flapping toward him. Fallion stood upon a low hill where the wheat grew nearly over his head, and there was a bright moon shining down, and monolithic oak trees on the distant hills.
The image struck him with such force that Fallion felt as if he had literally been carried away and all of his life had been a dream, for the world that he saw was more substantial, more earthy, than the one that he lived in.
The owl gave a querying call, and Fallion answered, “Ael.”
Then the dream ended, and he was standing with his mother and Myrrima.
“What did you say?” Myrrima asked.
“Ael,” Fallion answered. “I think that it was the name of the bright One who owned this cape pin.”
His mother said, “You’re probably right. The bright Ones often leave such visions on their items to identify the owner, much as we would write our name upon them.”
Fallion smiled sadly. He suspected that Asgaroth had taken this pin as a trophy. He’d killed a bright One of the netherworld, perhaps one who had come to fight him.
Now the pin had fallen into Fallion’s hands. He decided to treasure it, as a thing to be revered.
Yet even as he took it, he was loath to pin it on. Trinkets from the netherworld were not meant as toys; he suspected that this pin might have powers that he didn’t understand. Fallion could see runes engraved into the back of it; the rune lore of the bright Ones was unsurpassed.
It wasn’t a thing to be worn casually. It would attract the attention of the greedy and unscrupulous. Unsure what to do, he just stood hold
ing the pin.
Myrrima turned away, strolling toward the boat. Humfrey had hopped off and was marching on the shore, holding his weapon forlornly as he searched for snails or dead fish, or something else appropriately nasty to eat.
Fallion suddenly realized that his pet ferrin had gone conspicuously absent during the battle. Probably hiding among the packs. Apparently, battling wizards and strengi-saats was not to Humfrey’s taste.
Rhianna was wading in the shallows, and she suddenly called the ferrin, bent into the water, and tossed something up on shore. A huge red crayfish landed at Humfrey’s feet. It immediately raised its claws in the air defensively and began to back away.
Humfrey shrieked in terror and hefted his makeshift spear. After several whistles-calls of “Monster! Monster!” and much leaping about, he managed to impale the crayfish. In moments he was tearing off claws and pulling out white meat with his sharp teeth, grunting from the effort and smacking his lips in delight.
Sir Borenson sat on the boat, wheezing and still in shock, looking at his own hands as if he were amazed to have survived.
Talon and the other children had all gone to the battlefield, and Fallion could see Jaz up there, hunting for treasures among the dead.
Iome followed his gaze, frowned severely, and shouted, “Jaz, get away from there,” then added, “I’ve got a ring for you.” She pulled out the black iron signet ring. It was a great treasure. Anyone who wanted to lay claim to South Crowthen would need it.
But Fallion much preferred his cape pin. He held it, squinted as a ray of stray sunshine struck it.
Rhianna came struggling up out of the boat, leaning heavily on a staff. She stared at the pin in dismay, eyes filling with tears. “Mother’s pin. Where did you get it?”
“From him,” Iome said, nodding toward the head.
“Now I know she’s dead for sure,” Rhianna whispered. “She would never have parted with it.”
“You can have it,” Fallion said, holding out the pin.
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