But this was war, she reminded herself. And Dara the Sky Captain was a warrior.
Satisfied, at last, that the defenders were no longer a viable military unit, Dara reported the success of the flight to Timberwatch as she led her Wing back over the southern Waypoint to await further instructions.
Good news, Darmonal reported back a moment later, once he’d consulted with Lady Pentandra, or whomever she’d put in charge of the Sky Riders. That was the only force keeping Caswallon’s squadron from assaulting and liberating that prison. There are at least a thousand human slaves in there, he informed her.
How are we going to get a thousand people back through the Ways? she asked, concerned. It had been a major effort to transport the raiders to Olum Seheri.
We’re working on it, he promised. Let’s get them freed, first. Then we’ll worry about their trip home. Just got word – Tyndal needs your assistance on the Tower of Despair, he announced. They’re on the upper floors, away from the fire, but apparently there’s something nasty climbing the wall. Through the fire, he added, warningly.
We’ll go investigate and support, if able, Dara promised.
She briefly checked on the status of her Wing, and was relieved that everyone was still uninjured and not yet fatigued. Combat flying was exhausting – the combination of concentration, fear, excitement, and effort took a toll on a Rider’s body. She hastily gulped a few swallows of water from her bottle before she slung it and started relaying the new orders.
The run against the Tower of Despair – who came up with these names? – was different than their run over the gurvani. For one thing, the objective wasn’t comfortably below them – it was directly in front. The spire that towered above the rest of the island presented a massive target, helpfully lit by the flames engulfing the base of the structure. Without gravity to aid their attack, the method and manner of assault had to change.
That meant Sky Bolts, and other horizontal weaponry. While that was harder work, First Wing was adept at the technique. There was an entire cliffside in the Uwarris decorated with the rotting remains of pumpkins the Sky Riders used as targets in their drills. As Dara lined up the Wing’s attack, sailing out over the far eastern end of the island to take advantage of the wind, she pulled a Sky Bolt out of its scabbard and prepared it.
The light steel javelin was especially designed for this kind of work. This model was the fifth generation of design improvements she’d made over the last two years, and Dara was adept with the weapon. With overly large stabilizing fins in the wooden tail section, the nine-inch spearpoint was elegantly shaped and mage-hardened, making it a formidable projectile.
This time Dara formed her Wing up in a line, with Fearless leading, and they came in to the battle at a mere three hundred feet of altitude. Most of the territory their swift wings covered was barren, rocky plains of ruined masonry left over from the final deluge of the Battle of Red Ice. But there were just enough gurvani snipers concealed among the ruins to make the approach interesting.
The Tower itself was a darkened edifice that seemed to be constructed of the ruins. It was as wide at the base as Chepstan Keep, back home, she saw, and even though much of that width was on fire, the Tower was so massive that less than a quarter of the building had been affected by the blaze. Where they weren’t fighting the fire, the gurvani garrison within was congregating to respond to the multiple attacks.
More problematic, at the moment, were the shapes crawling through the flames and up the side of the building. They seemed to ignore gravity, so fast did they move. She used magesight to get a better look, as the smoke cleared enough for her to see. The sight made her shudder, involuntarily.
The defenders of the Tower were undead, red-eyed draugen, from what she’d been told in briefing. She’d never met one, herself, but any mental preparation she might have made for the possibility did not soften the shock of their appearance.
They wore the bodies of men: gaunt, tortured bodies of her fellow human beings, their skin usually exposed. It did not have the same tone as living men, offering a ghastly gray pallor instead of living pink flesh. Worse, the bodies had been branded with all manner of sorcerous sigils by the Enshadowed. Those spells were to retard the rate of decomposition and degradation of the dead flesh, Minalan had told everyone at the briefing on the undead. The necromantic spells that animated the dead limbs fed on the decomposition, and without the enchantments slowing it down they would soon consume the very flesh they animated.
The tortured bodies were animated not by mere sorcerous command; the draugen were defined by the enneagrams of ancient predators culled from the Ghost Rock of the island. Just as the High Magi used those enneagrams as paracletes in enchantments ranging from magical rods and swords to the arcane constructs that did battle, below, the Necromancer used them to inhabit the bodies of the dead.
It was how they moved, Dara decided as Fearless flew closer, that made them truly terrifying. They did not move like human beings. They flung themselves into impossible positions, grasping the rough walls in ways human fingers were just not designed to, and moved with a combination of alien fluidity and sudden jerkiness that was entirely foreign to a human being. The Nemovorti, at least, were Alka Alon enneagrams, she reasoned. They were used to having hands and feet. These things were ancient horrors compelled to work and fight in bodies they were unused to.
“Scrape them off that building!” she commanded to Fancy’s Rider, behind her. Then she turned to her target.
With intense concentration Dara hefted the sky bolt over her shoulder, taking a steady aim on the draugen in the lead. She waited until the distance was right – just like destroying pumpkins in the Uwarris back home, she reminded herself – and then hurled the sky bolt toward the hideous thing.
It darted out ahead of Fearless’ beak and streaked through the smoke-filled air like a lightning bolt. Dara was already drawing a warwand as she watched the javelin impale the creature through the back, pinning it securely to the Tower through its backbone.
She got off two more blasts at closer range with her warwand, sending bolts of concussive force to shake the draugen off of their perches and into the flames, below, before she had to sharply bank to avoid a collision. She and the big bird timed it well enough so that Fearless’ steel-clad claws raked through a fourth draugen as they made their closes approach to the building.
Behind her, she saw, the other Riders of the First Wing were scoring nearly as well on the creeping undead. Sky bolts, crossbow darts, and lances of arcane power strafed the draugen, greatly reducing the number of them who pursued Tyndal and his company on the upper floors. Faithful, the Tail of the Wing, slowed his flight to a crawl and allowed his Rider to launch a half-dozen concussive enchantments that shook the entire face of the structure before she pulled him into a bank.
Ishi’s tits, Dara! Rondal was yelling at her, mind-to-mind, a moment later. Are you trying to kill us? No more big booms! This place wasn’t exactly built to masons’ guild standards!
Sorry! she replied. We got carried away. But there are a lot less draugen crawling up the side of the place, now, she reasoned. How much longer are you going to be in there? she added, worriedly. The fire the lads had started at the base of the structure was climbing beyond the fifth floor, now, and seemed to be burrowing into the center of the Tower above the great arch. It still had several floors to go before it became a direct danger to the prison level . . . unless the building became unstable.
Not much longer, I think, Rondal reported back. We’re still rounding up prisoners. But it’s starting to get hard to breathe, he admitted. As soon as we find Tyndal—
You’ve lost Tyndal? she demanded.
It’s complicated! We’re on the floor below him, we think, but things are getting very chaotic, and you didn’t stop all the draugen from – I’ll talk later, he said, abruptly, and ended the conversation.
That was frustrating and worrying at the same time. But she’d learned that you couldn’t worry abou
t things affecting other units, not in combat. She and the First Wing had done their duty and accomplished what they’d been ordered to do.
“Back to the southern point!” she called out to the Wing, when they’d resumed their patrol formation, flying close enough for their voices to be heard. “Until we get new orders, we’ll patrol above Terleman’s site,” she commanded.
When the others confirmed the orders, she lead them back out east and south, away from the fires and back toward the dark, misty water. She took a welcome breath of cleaner air and tried to relax from the excitement of combat flying.
She felt, before she saw or heard, the sudden attack from the darkness. The awareness she’d cultivated as a beastmaster warned her that there were other things in the air mere moments before she saw the glint of light on their wings – and their eyes.
“Wyverns!” she screamed, unsure if anyone could hear her, but feeling compelled to warn them. She cursed as the vicious predators began pacing Fearless. Damn it, wasn’t Taren’s contraption supposed to have cleared the skies of them? she asked herself.
True, there weren’t nearly as many now as they were warned about, but there were enough flying reptiles left in the air to bother her Wing. She drew a warwand in each hand and began trying to cull the survivors from the air while she called Pentandra, mind-to-mind.
Pentandra, weren’t the wyverns supposed to be gone? she demanded. There’s a batch of them just south-east of Terleman’s position. They’re harassing my Wing!
How many? Pentandra asked, bluntly.
Only six or seven, at the moment, but—
That’s almost nothing, Dara, Pentandra reproved. There were thousands there, when we started!
Just thought I’d let you know, she replied, glumly.
She was too busy to report back to Pentandra a moment later, when the number of wyverns skirmishing with the hawks seemed to grow. One of the vicious beasts tried to attack Fearless’ feet, but a flick of the powerful talons sent the creature plummeting. Dara managed to fell two with her wands, but they moved so quickly and chaotically that her shots mostly missed.
Her Wingmates weren’t having any better luck. She saw two of the beasts dig into the tailfeathers of Fancy, much to her annoyance, and Faithful’s ponderous bulk seemed to attract plenty of them. Dara, herself, had to fend off the wyverns when they realized that the Riders, not just the hawks, were vulnerable.
She spent a few tense moments when one of the creatures wrapped its snaky tail around her right arm and began stabbing at her with its poisonous tail. Thankfully her armor protected her flesh from the sting, but the claws and vicious teeth of the little flying predator gave her a few anxious moments before she got frustrate and used an arcanely-conjured electrical shock to stiffen the pest into unconsciousness. She hoped it didn’t wake up before it hit the lake.
But as soon as she relieved herself from one of them, a second attacked her left thigh, and she had to fight all over again . . . as the scaly comrades of the beast attached themselves to Fearless’ wing.
We can’t fight them! she realized in a panic. We’re going to go down!
“Emergency landing!” she yelled into the air as she fought for control over Fearless. “Head for the shore! Try not to land in the water!” she warned.
Fearless was getting frustrated and panicked himself, she could feel through their connection. The bird was angry, and was flying more erratically with too much weight on his wing – weight that was biting and chewing at the poor bird’s flesh. He banked sharply, without warning, as he tried to dislodge the predators. He was only partially successful, leaving a bare and bloody spot revealed under the torn-away feathers.
Dara blasted the other wyvern carefully with a warwand, but with it entangled in Fearless’ wing, there was just too much possibility it would injure Fearless, as well. She couldn’t do anything about it until they were on the ground and she could tear it off . . . but a single glance back told her that landing presented its own problems. There was at least a score of wyverns behind her, waiting for Fearless to do just that.
Dara used the last of her warwands on thinning the flock of reptiles behind her, and experimented with some other spells to keep them away. But she exhausted her knowledge of combat magic quickly, without reducing the number of pursuers by much.
Her Wingmates were in even more trouble, she saw – Fancy was flying on an injured wing herself, and was making a slow, lazy spiral who’s each revolution took her closer to shore. Faithful was nearly falling out of the sky, gliding as quickly as he could to get to shore. Dara couldn’t see how their Riders fared. She couldn’t even see the fourth bird in her Wing, as Fearless crossed the shoreline.
That occupied all of her attention – landing a wounded bird was fraught with trouble, for a Rider. She’d lost a Rider that way, she recalled with a painful stab, as the ground below rushed up to meet her. She could hear, as well as feel, the clank of Fearless’ steel-clad talons scramble for purchase as he tried to land, braking hard with his injured wing.
It wasn’t an entirely successful maneuver, and both bird and Rider went sprawling as they landed. Dara cleverly released the catches that bound her flying harness together with her saddle, one of Master Andalnam’s finest creations, and leapt clear of the injured hawk as it skidded across the rubble-strewn beach.
Her own impact was even more abrupt than Fearless’. She took the brunt of it on her right shoulder as she slid into a rock. Had she not been wearing her hard leather flight helmet, she was sure she would have brained herself in the landing.
But moments after she painfully skidded to a halt, she was on her feet again, her curved combat dagger Talon in her hand.
Talon wasn’t exactly a mageblade, but it was sufficiently enchanted to attack the wyverns now swarming over Fearless. The bird shook angrily and used its great beak liberally to pull the tiny lizards from his skin and feathers – or at least a piece of them. Fearless’ beak was massive, sharp, and powerful.
Dara stabbed and slashed at the scaly pests with Talon, wordlessly screaming her defiance and anger as she pulled them away with bloody hands. Thankfully her flight gauntlets were thick enough to keep their needle-like teeth from her flesh, but she sustained a number of scratches as she worked around her angry bird.
Then, as suddenly as they’d appeared, the wyverns scattered. At first Dara thought that they’d finally become aware of just how formidable a giant hawk could be, when it was enraged. But she knew that didn’t fit the predators’ style. Wyverns, she could tell, were all teeth and appetite. They were swarm hunters and scavengers, not mental giants.
Once again, she felt the presence that scared them away before she saw it. Not as nodes of animal life in the great matrix around her, but as a hollow space in that matrix. It was as if there was a shadow cast over the web of life.
Fearless continued to call defiantly after the wyverns, feeling for all the world as if they’d been driven off by his magnificent prowess. But the truth was, Dara knew with a sinking feeling, that there was a greater power than a giant hawk at play.
She did her best to send calming and soothing emotions through her link, to still the great bird, while she sought some cover in the rubble on the beach. None of her Wingmates were visible in the sky, now, and she had no idea where any of them might be.
For twenty long breaths, she clung to a rock next to Fearless, who’d finally calmed down enough to keep from being such a target, and she was almost certain that the danger had passed . . . when she heard a voice from the darkness.
“That is an impressive creature,” the raspy voice said, in a thickly-accented tone. “I wonder if it will still be able to fly, after it is dead and reanimated?”
“I’m guessing that’s a rhetorical question,” Dara said, boldly standing and brandishing her blade. “Because that is not going to happen today.”
“Oh, he’s already taken a lot of venom from those things,” the voice dismissed as it came closer through the mists. “He m
ight last a few weeks, but if left untreated he’ll eventually get an infection.”
“He won’t be untreated,” Dara vowed, as she searched for her tormentor’s exact location. “I wouldn’t get comfortable fantasizing about soaring over the clouds. Who are you?” she demanded.
“The very thought of flight gives me chills,” the raspy voice announced. “But it is intriguing. Who am I? This is my home, now. Who are you? Or do you humani have no manners?”
“I am Lenodara of Sevendor, Hawklady of the Westwood, Captain of the Sky Riders,” Dara announced, trying to sound fearless as possible. “And you will not hurt my bird!”
“Hurt him? I shall cherish his magnificence in death in ways you mortals cannot comprehend, much less appreciate. But you have answered my question, and hospitality requires I answer yours,” the voice admitted. “I am Khudoz. Third counsellor to Korbal the Great,” he said, proudly.
“You’re a Nemovort,” Dara accused, her eyes growing wide and every hair on her head standing up.
“That is the term,” agreed the voice, coming closer. “I am one of the master’s most devoted servants. I have been for a thousand years. He has tasked me with countering this . . . incursion into his peace,” Khudoz said, with disgust.
“So, you’re a great warrior?” Dara asked, hoping she sounded skeptical. A Nemovort. Lords of the undead. Powerful Alka Alon sorcerers from long ago, stuffed into the body of some hulking human slave.
“Warrior? Nay,” chuckled the voice. “I am a researcher. Nor do I embrace the necromantic arts, the way my brethren do,” he admitted. “My interests are in the variety of life.”
“That is a more noble pursuit than necromancy,” agreed Dara, warily. She noted that Fearless was much calmer, now . . . and very aware of the new danger in the shadows.
“I’ve always thought so,” the voice agreed. “Take your own species, for example,” the undead lord said, conversationally. “So similar to the Alon, yet so delightfully different! This new body is as remarkable as it is strange. A complex architecture, almost as sophisticated as the Alon. A pity they wear out so soon, under the strain. I will miss it, I think,” the voice admitted.
Necromancer: Book Ten Of The Spellmonger Series Page 52
