by Guy Antibes
Pol got the sense that Demeron laughed. Thank you for reminding me. I was going to take over for him.
“We have to go to Tishiko, so Lightning needs the experience.”
I understand, now.
“We should be able to see them soon,” Pol said. “Get information from Ako’s and Fadden’s horses.”
The enemy has stopped, facing the horses.
“Make sure everyone has shields,” Pol said. “We can’t have our own horses fighting each other.”
Agreed.
Demeron took them up to the top of a rise. They could see the Shinkyan horses arrayed in ranks with Fadden, Jonness, Karo Nagoya, and Ako mounted behind, along with about fifteen riders that Pol had not expected.
“Can you make any kind of contact with the enemy horses?”
I have already tried. Their horses are too tired to be of much use.
“We are going to disrupt from the rear.” Pol could see that the Deftnis riders were not doing any communicating. “Tell Lightning that we will be attacking from the flank. I would appreciate it if half the horses back us up.”
Pol had to wait a moment before Demeron replied. They will move when we do.
Jonness put his hand up and looked their way. The enemy was ready to charge. Pol raised his and let Demeron lead the way. A column of horses ran towards their position on the hill but didn’t climb. They headed towards the back of the enemy.
“It’s time to get our hands dirty,” Pol said. He located and found two riders on the next ridge. “We will take care of the scouts first.”
Demeron rushed down the other side of the ridge, and with enhanced speed, Pol closed in on the scouts in short order. He pulled out his sword and fought both scouts who attacked him simultaneously. With his own sips of magic, he attacked one as Demeron scooted around the pair, putting Pol on one side rather than in the middle.
Demeron instructed both horses to stay where they were while Pol put both scouts to sleep. They raced down the hill to join the Shinkyan horses, just beginning to form a skirmish line.
“We want to minimize injury, so keep the horses attacking the rear of the enemy. I’ll fight the officers.”
Demeron led the charge. One hundred horses, five rows of twenty, slammed into the enemy. Pol heard more horses whinny than men shout when the Shinkyans brought their weight to bear as they reared up and struck the horses flanks. Horses went down along with the men, sowing disruption that went all the way to the front. Pol struck a soldier and found his sword sliding off a ward. It seemed that the Winnowers warded all the soldiers.
“Kick one of the soldiers on the ground,” Pol said.
The ward did not prevent Demeron from injuring the soldier. “The horses will fight better than swords. Tell Lightning that the soldiers have personal wards, and sleeping spells will work better than weapons.”
The battlefield turned into a chaotic valley of angry Shinkyan horses. When the enemy horses turned to fight, their riders fell to the ground. Pol put as many of the enemy to sleep as he could, but many of them died from Shinkyan hooves.
Deftnis monks, plus Ako, chased the dismounted Winnowers that fled the field. The dust of the battle began to settle, showing a few soldiers with their hands raised. The rest of the horses stood. Lightning had his horses surround the enemy in a large circle.
Pol rode over to Jonness. “Lightning did a superb job.”
Jonness shook his head. “With a little help from Demeron.”
Lightning whinnied and nodded his head.
“We will have to assess the damage. Most of the enemy didn’t make it through the battle,” Pol said as he surveyed the field. A rider rose up and ran until confronted with two Shinkyan horses.
“The wards don’t protect the force behind horse hooves,” Ako said. “I would have never thought.”
“I’ll bet you won’t find a cut or abrasion from the Shinkyan horses, but the internal damage killed them,” Pol said. “Let’s see how many are compelled or have mind-control.”
They continued to inspect the field. Two of the Deftnis monks were healers, but three of the party were women healers.
“These are from Mancus Abbey?” Pol said.
“Magicians and healers. They can all see into the body to some extent,” Ako said. “I have learned a lot in the months at the monastery.”
Pol found a fighter that was not injured. He had to be faking. He looked at his brain and found compulsion. Pol removed the three brown lines first and then pulled out the compulsion. He looked for the protection ward and found it sitting on the man’s chest. He quickly removed it.
The enemy sighed and lay back. “I am free, aren’t I? Can I sit up?”
“You can,” Pol said.
He poked the tip of his sword against the man’s chest. The man’s eyes grew large. “I’m without protection!”
“But free from compulsion,” Fadden said. “You may rise and identify magicians and officers of your group.”
The rest of the monks dragged bodies into rows.
“Eighty-three men,” Jonness said.
“Eighty-five. There are two scouts asleep on that hill.” Pol pointed to where the scouts’ horses still stood. “Let me show you where the protection wards are located.”
They walked to Ako who was healing a soldier. Pol pointed to the man’s breastbone. “Look there. You will see an anomaly.”
“Oh, the green patch?”
Pol smiled. “I don’t see it that way, but yes that. Do you know how to eliminate wards?”
“I haven’t taught him,” Ako said.
“Think of it turning to dust and blowing away or something. Use a tweak that works for you,” Pol said.
Jonness tried for a few moments. “What works for me is picturing it turning to ash.”
Pol looked at the man’s chest, and the ward was gone. “It’s going to be hard to do that when you are in battle. It works faster if you touch him.”
“But it’s not necessary,” Jonness said. “If we join hands the range increases.”
“Is that how the Imperial forces defeated King Astor?”
Jonness nodded.
Pol whistled. “Some of these—”
“I told them all,” Ako said. “We were the first to find out about the trigger that killed the compulsion ward, but there haven’t been any to practice on, until now.”
“You have to be able to see inside the head to remove that compulsion safely,” Pol said.
“I can’t do that,” Jonness said. “But I did see the protection ward.”
Pol saw that as a problem with thousands of non-magical fighters in a large-scale battle. He would have to come up with a solution. He rose and began removing wards and mind-control on the twenty-or-so survivors.
Three riders approached them from the northwest.
“Ako!” Shira said. She looked at Pol. “What happened?”
Pol described the battle and how the Winnower protection spell didn’t stand up to the power of a Shinkyan horse.
“I have to get some scouts,” Pol said as Shira mounted, as well, and joined him on his ride to the top of the low ridge.
They dismounted. Pol let her go ahead.
“Do you see the wards on their chests?” Pol asked.
She nodded. “Those are external, but you know I can’t see into their heads.”
“The compulsion wards exists there, too.” Pol quickly removed them. “Take care of the protection ward from a few paces back. Let’s see what your range is.”
She walked back three paces and turned. “I’ve done what I can,” Shira said.
Pol smiled. “The one on the right is clean. Take two more steps back.”
“Did it work?”
Pol saw traces of the ward remaining. He shook his head. “Four paces is your range,” he said. “That is enough to save your life, though.”
She ran to him and clutched at his arms. “So many will be killed. Magicians will be spread too thin. It’s not just me who I’m wo
rried about.”
Pol put his arms around her. “I agree. There isn’t enough lodestone in the world to stop an army.”
A voice came unbidden from his mind. Isn’t that grand?
Pol shook his head. “The essence is back.”
The sense of a smile alarmed Pol. I never left. I just lurked for a while.
A rending sound, searing pain, and evil laughter assailed him. Pol put his hands to his head.
Kill them, the voice said. Kill your friends. Join the Winnowers. They are my kind of people!
“No, no, NO!” Pol yelled to Shira. “I must leave. Don’t follow, the essence is fighting me!” Pol said.
He jumped on Demeron. “Take me away from people. West, west into the Shinkyan swamps!”
Demeron reared and whinnied before he shot off to the west. Pol looked back, heartbroken that he had to leave his friends to save them. If he succumbed to the essence, he might become a greater danger to his friends. That couldn’t happen. He would kill himself first. He glanced at Shira, her mouth open, tears beginning to fall from her eyes, as she disappeared from Pol’s sight.
~~~
Chapter Fourteen
~
T he pair of them rode through the day and into the night. The moon reached its zenith when the dark fringe of the Shinkyan swamp loomed ahead. Pol’s concentration on reaching the swamp had kept the alien essence at bay until now.
He slumped on the saddle, barely aware that Demeron continued to take him to the edges of the swamp, and then they both plunged into the dark, fetid recesses of his destination.
~
Pol woke, gazing up at the speckled sunlight, filtered by dark green leaves. Demeron had lain down and snored. It was not the first time he had heard the mighty horse make sounds in his sleep.
After drinking from his waterskin, Pol leaned against the side of a twisted tree. All the plants looked off somehow in the swamp, as if they were tweaked into deformity. The smell matched the eeriness of the locale.
The essence had retreated. Pol wished he knew how that happened, for if he knew, he would tuck the alien mind away for the rest of his life. Their lives, he thought.
He took a bite of a lump of hard bread and closed his eyes.
Thought you were rid of me?
Pol’s eyes shot open. “Leave me, and don’t return!”
That is not my desire. The Scorpion ward inactivated my thoughts, and when Traxus removed it, my consciousness took some time to coalesce, but I am back stronger, so strong that I will take over your human body and fight against your Emperor. The Winnowers have the right idea. Subjugation is the only true power.
“You’re wrong,” Pol said. “Your kind, my ancestors, were poisoned by the Zasosians. The mighty brought down by those who refused to become slaves. Slavery is evil, and that means that—”
I am evil? Pol sensed the laughter. What is evil, but something different? There is no such thing as evil. It is all power. Powerful people subjugate and enslave by subtle or by overt means. Doing so is very easy. You prey on people’s self-interest and trick them into thinking they are getting something for nothing, and then they are caught. That is how we subjugated the slave race you call the Shinkyans.
Pol could see how that worked. He’d seen it in Bossom and Duchary, although the inhabitants wouldn’t perceive their state that way. They were slaves like the Shinkyans had been.
I want your body now! It is time I ascended from the cesspit of your mind and truly looked at the light of the world I am destined to rule. Your body’s talent surpasses anything I had in the past. I can use it to become the Chief Winnower.
Pol would not let that happen. He stood and clutched his fists.
Pol? Demeron said. Are you fighting the alien?
Pol could only nod as his head nearly split open in pain. He fought back and tweaked shards of ice into his mind. The alien screamed.
A smile came to Pol’s face as he discovered a way to make the alien uncomfortable. He sent more ice into his mind, but then he lost his eyesight and control over his body as he dropped to the ground.
I cannot let you do that to me, again, the alien said.
Pol opened his eyes, his sight returned, but then he lost it again to a shattering lance of agony. He could hear the screams come out of his mouth as he again lost control of his movements.
The battle went on. Pol sensed his body jerking and thrashing, as his mind and the alien entity fought in the middle of the Shinkyan swamp. Then suddenly, Pol felt adrift. His mind disconnected from his body.
Ah, the alien said as Pol felt his mind rip out of his body. He sensed the blue disk that he had seen in Teriland, and Pol struggled with the alien as they fell through the opening into a dark world lit by an angry red sun.
I will take care of you here, the alien said. This is my home world. Beautiful, isn’t it?
Black cinders covered lumpy shapes that might have been buildings long, long ago. Pol could not smell, but he somehow sensed a bitter metallic odor in the air.
“Your world is dead. Did you kill it?” Pol said. The fighting had let up with the change in their surroundings.
It grew too close to the sun and will fall into it, in time. My world no longer supports life, but it will support your mind, marooned forever.
“You kept this from me. All the while you controlled the release of your memories.”
Pol felt the alien essence gloating. He could nearly make out an outline, an empty space in the form of a man. Did he appear like that to the alien?
Part of me is bound to this world. It is a consequence of the portal.
“The blue disk?”
Indeed.
The essence attacked Pol again. Without a body, he no longer felt the pain, but his consciousness began to waver. His vision of the alien world blurred and cleared, blurred and cleared.
“Before I die, how did you manage to put me here? You must have had help,” Pol said. “I don’t believe you have the power.” Pol sensed that the alien no longer had easy access to his mind, but Pol did not have access to any unshared memories either.
It is what you would call a warded tweak. The blue disk is the ward, and I tweaked us both out of your mind to here. I can do that because I am anchored to both worlds.
“And that makes no sense to me,” Pol said. “The blue disk is inert and on the other side of the world from here. You lie.”
What if do? It will not make any sense to you. I will get rid of you here. Once I do that I can tweak myself into your body, and I will take Demeron and be on my way, once I take care of your friends, including your beloved Shira.
If Pol had had control of his fists, he would have clenched them. He calmed himself and wondered if he had any power in this world. He suddenly felt a surge of power from some source outside him and raised his hand to tweak the wind.
Dust swirled in front of him. The dust coalesced into an image of Shira, her face changing only slightly as the dust circulated within his vision of her.
How are you doing that? Pol sensed the alien’s confusion and consternation.
“You can’t?” Pol said. “I dare you to try.”
The essence generated a little hump of dust swirling on the ground. It stopped. Pol felt the essence attack again.
I must conquer you. Your body holds power!
The fighting began again. Pol fought with every bit of will that he possessed. His senses swam, dimming and clearing many times. He moved away from the essence, only to be attacked again and again. The essence knew how to fight with his mind, and Pol struggled to defend himself, but finally, in desperation, Pol knew it had to stop.
He concentrated on where he was. He had to tweak his mind back to Phairoon, back to Eastril, back to the swamp, and back into his body. As he sensed leaving the burnt-out world, he heard a scream. The entity clutched at him, but Pol threw him off and created a protection ward around his mind.
NO!
Pol shrugged off the alien mind and tweaked.
~
A force controlled Pol’s body. He had no ability to restrain whatever moved him. Had he lost? Had he failed to shake off the alien?
He struggled to open his eyes and looked into Shira’s. Her hands gripped his shoulders as she shook him. Tears streamed down her face.
“Shira?” Pol said. His voice sounded weak, but he controlled his speech. “Is the alien here?”
Pol searched his mind, but no vestige of the alien remained. He retained the memories that the essence had revealed, but he felt different, cleaner, somehow. He had left the essence behind. He could not do more than move his fingers. The tweak must have cost him all his energy.
“I won,” Pol managed a weary smile. “I need to sleep for a bit.”
Pol woke up in the middle of the night feeling more like himself. Shira lay curled up by his side. He let her sleep while he spotted a waterskin next to Amble’s sleeping form and drained it.
You are awake, a voice proclaimed in his head.
Pol gasped. Had the essence returned? But then realized the speaker to be Demeron.
“How long did I fight the alien?”
For two days, Demeron said. Shira found us midday and held your hand. It calmed the tremors in your body a bit. You seemed to pulsate becoming transparent and more solid until the end, then Shira thought you had died. We both worried that your life had ended.
“But I’m alive.”
That makes us both very happy. It makes lots of humans and horses happy, Demeron said. Are you going to wake up Shira?
Shira sat up. “I’m awake. Between your voice assaulting my ears and Demeron’s thoughts assaulting my mind, how can I stay asleep?” She crawled on all fours to Pol and put her arms around him. “You are really you?”
Pol grinned. “I am. Somehow, the essence began to gain power after Traxus removed the ward. It knew all that I did.”
“And it wanted to be a Winnower?”
“The ruler of the Winnowers. We fought in my mind, and then he tweaked us both to his home world. Their sun is falling into their world. It is a pile of ash.”
“Did you kill it?”
Pol shook his head. “I don’t think so. I left it behind. It has little power. Somehow I suddenly could tweak, so I escaped.”
