"My informant said magic ..."
"Ai! And Lady Nalu says that apparition was indeed a witch from The Interior, the traitor her Web has been seeking."
"Betrayed by an lit," Danaer muttered. "And now they conspire with Markuand, the Royal Commander's enemies in the capital."
"Rightly do the Azsed take vengeance on us. They will not forget who cost them Deki, and, by the gods, The Interior had best not! We fought well here, together, and then to be defeated by . . ." Yistar spat at the corpse of a Markuand. "We must hold here a trifle longer. Liyur, feed those papers in the fire at once. All of them. Nothing must give the enemy help. We will stall them until Branra gets our wounded to safety." He grinned at Danaer. "That devil-ecar. He wanted to stay here and kill more - Markuand. But I sent him to cover the retreat. He has risked his blood enough already."
"Branraediir of the Bloody Sword, indeed. A warrior unequaled, save by Straedanfi."
"Bah! In two lifetimes I could not match that firebrand." But Yistar's eyes twinkled at the compliment. "We want him alive for the battles to come, though."
"Lira?" Danaer could contain his anxiety no longer.
"Upstairs, engaged in some sorkra business. Go fetch her. I tried to argue that she had run out of time, but I have no wit to deal with a wizard woman. Mayhap she will hsten to you. Go!"
"They come again, Captain!" the lookout warned. Danaer hefted his sword, then was stunned as a woman's scream rang down the stairway.
Danaer took the steps at a run, in time to catch a Markuand climbing through a window at the top. He cut down the man, then hurried toward Lira's room.
As he flung aside the curtain at the door, Danaer's apprehension turned to fury. A Markuand struggled with Lira. Her face was contorted with distracted terror, a kind of half awareness of what was occurring. She was in a sorkra trance, and this brute had attacked her when she was thus helpless!
Danaer lunged forward, and the Markuand swung Lira around, using her as a shield. Lira thrashed in his arms, and Danaer called to her to be still, fearing she would goad the man to kill her. She could not hear him, transfixed in her wizardry. She was moaning, in a manner all too familiar. Danaer fought his dread, concentrating on what must be done.
The tip of his blade touched the slender sword of the Markuand. It was a testing, and this was no inexperienced youngster. This man knew how to handle a weapon, and his eyes were not so dull as many of his race Danaer had met in combat. The Markuand sensed Danaer's concern for Lira and kept her between them.
"Hear me, come to me," Lira keened, and the Markuand glanced at her uneasily. Danaer pressed the flat of his sword against the enemy's, trying to force the edge away from Lira.
The obsidian talisman began to thrill against his breast, strength flowing into sinew and bone, making him a living weapon of sorcery. The walls cracked with
ice, and wind and an ominous darkness swept in upon them.
Danaer's sword was locked with the Markuand's. A brain-numbing singsong filled their ears. Danaer could neither move nor speak, but the Markuand could, and lifted his weapon. There was a wildness in his expression, and then he too was held motionless, his arm arrested as he prepared to bring down a death stroke.
The world was transformed. Danaer had felt too often the pervasive touch of magic which took him in as part of Lira's Web. But this was not the same. There was an awful emptiness, a reaching out with nothing to find.
A tremendous whining exploded among them. Danaer wanted to fling his hands over his ears. The obsidian burned against his skin, as hot as the smoking mountain which had given it birth.
A dot of light appeared in the cold darkness, resting lightly upon Lira's forehead. The blackness gathered, plunging the three of them into the totality of a starless, moonless night. Danaer's stomach heaved in rebellion as he knew a horde of entities—there and not there, human and inhuman, people and things Lira called to in her desperation.
Trapped amid strange voices and darkness, Danaer could somehow see Lira and the Markuand, their forms bright and dancing in the inky blackness. The Markuand's sword ghttered as if lit from within by some supernatural force. Danaer marshaled his will against the man and the weapon and against all Markuand. He could not move, but he thrust with his mind, yearning to help Lira and free them from this menace.
Then, for the first time, Danaer heard a Markuand scream—a wordless shriek of utter despair.
Lira was rigid, only her lips moving, and before Danaer's startled gaze the Markuand began to . . . fall?
But no! He was upright, not falling. He was shrinking, receding from Danaer and Lira with great rapidity, dwindling in size, and screaming as he shrank. His voice, like his body, closed in upon itself, becoming
ever smaller and smaller. Ice ran through Danaer's vems.
A small hand pressed his, the shock of human warmth reaching mto his soul. Suddenly the cold and darkness were gone, like a burst bubble. Lira fell into Danaer's arms, and he discovered with immense relief that he could move those arms. She clung to him, shuddering violently. They were alone. The Markuand and the strange presences and the blackness and cold were gone.
"Oh, qedra, you . . . you were almost caught with him. If that had happened . . ." Lira broke off with a racking sob.
Finding his wits with difficulty, Danaer asked, "Where... is he?"
Lira's eyes were haunted. "He is trapped in the Web. Forever."
"Dead?" That, at least, was something Danaer could understand.
"No, not dead." Lira refused to speak more of this thing she had done with her sorkra talents. "The witch ... the traitor . . . she who walked the walls and blinded men to her master's evil assassins . . ." Lira shuddered again, but now there was anger mixed with her fear. "She sent this Markuand to kill me. She wants me dead. And last night she countered my powers, almost destroyed me, with ... with you."
Reluctantly he said, "She may have guided him, but he got into the building through a window. And we must get away before more of his kind come."
Danaer swept her into the protection of his arm, leading her out to the hall, looking warily to left and right. The corridor and the window were empty, and he steered Lira toward the stairs. Halfway down, they stopped. A clash and din of fighting rose from below, and then a Markuand ran up toward them, a dripping sword in hand. Danaer caught him by surprise, then pulled Lira out of the way of the body. They descended to the main room—into a scene of carnage. One man still stood amid the bodies, a Markuand, his sword bloody as he bent over Yistar.
Danaer was upon him before the enemy warrior
could react. It was only when Lira shouted him back to sanity that Danaer realized he had been striking the dead man over and over, butchering the remains.
He knelt and lifted Yistar's head. The officer's eyes were already partially glazed, and a spreading wetness covered Danaer's hand where he cradled Yistar's shoulders. The Captain still held his sword. Plainly he had been engaged with one of the enemy when another had struck him down from behind. It seemed a cruel twist of fate for Straedanfi, who had always come fearlessly at his foes. Danaer's throat thickened with grief.
Yistar blinked up at him. "Danaer? Ai, my Azsed." He gripped the scout's wrist. His voice was slurred and had an overstrong Nyald accent Danaer had not heard Yistar use in years. "The snake," he moaned, "that filthy, Bog'-cursed winged snake ...!"
"It is gone," Danaer humored him gently, not arguing with his delirium.
"Great white wings mingled with scales and feathers, with talons and dripping fangs like ... like ..."
"It fled from your sword, Captain. You have vanquished it."
"Distracted me, and then . . ." Yistar was angered by his defeat, but growing too weak to cling to the thought. His gaze brightened. "Branra. Get to Branra. He will need good men more than ever now."
"I will. And this is but one battle. The war will be ours, Captain." Then Danaer sensed the man could not hear him, would never hear him again. He pried loose the fingers from
his wrist and eased the body down, closing the dead eyes.
He put away his sorrow, thinking what must be done. The roan he had taken from the Markuand waited beside the door, restlessly pawing the floorboards. Indeed, it had been wise to bring the beast into the building, Destre fashion, to guard against theft. Branra. Yistar had said to get to Branra, and where had he said Branra would be? The Square of the Ryerdon . ..
"Forgive me," Lira sobbed over Yistar's body. "I was too frail, and they are so powerful. I have lost Deki for you ..."
"You were outnumbered, as we all were," Danaer consoled her. He caught Lira about the waist and lifted her onto the roan, then jumped up behind her.
"We cannot leave him hke this!" Lira cried.
Danaer spurred the roan through the door. "I too wish to give Straedanfi a proper pyre, but the living need me more, you most of all." He put his riding skills to hard use, wending through the dangerous streets. Again and again he had to turn the roan into alleyways and filthy passages to hide from roving bands of mounted Markuand and some of Deki's own worst element, who used Deki's disaster as an excuse to slit throats and rob. Neither the Markuand nor the gutter sweepings seemed to have much of a plan, roaming and slaughtering at will. Danaer knew he might hope for a quick end if they were caught, but Lira would not fare so well. That grim knowledge made him the more determined to win free to the western gate.
Once he rode through a dank tunnel between structures and was forced to draw the roan to a sudden halt and mask its nostrils with his hand. Lira sucked in her breath, staring out into the sunlit square beyond their shadowed place as several Destre-Y rode by. Unlike many of the cutthroats in Destre garb, these were familiar, and Danaer bit his Up to keep from roaring out a name—and a challenge to fight to the death.
Hablit! The former chieftain of Vidik and his loyal followers prowled Deki's streets, roistering, grinning maliciously, celebrating the collapse of the city—and of the alliance between Gordt te Raa and the Royal Conmiander. Hablit had won his revenge and delighted in the bloodshed it brought.
Yet Danaer could not risk confronting him. With Lira in his keeping, it was foolhardy and pointless, a throwing away of their lives. He could not hope to reach Hablit before the others would cut him down. He could only watch until they had passed, and swear that he would take his own vengeance in the days to come, with the death of Yistar and many others repaid double.
Like animals or criminals, he and Lira moved in the half darkness cast by eaves and looming buildings,
creeping through the streets, always turning west. Lira had mastered her grief now and was as a warrior's woman must be, silent and brave. Without asking, Danaer knew she was regaining her sorkra strength after the ordeal with the Markuand and the Captain's death.
Finally, ahead lay the Square of the Ryerdon, the first intersection Yistar's troops had crossed when they had come to Deki. Danaer patted the roan's neck and praised its sturdiness in bringing them safely here. It was a good mount, and he regretted that some Destre had been slain by a Markuand and his well-trained horse made plunder. But through that, Danaer and Lira had come to the place of meeting, near the gates.
Wagons were gathered in the square's center, and litters with wounded were being put into them. A last few ranks of soldiers were forming up and departing as rapidly as their Troop Leaders could make any order of the situation. Branra and Gordyan were directing this escape, their troops and warriors working together. Gordyan was sending his men off west to the gates with the wagons even as Danaer and Lira rode into the intersection.
As they dismounted, the big Destre swept them into a hearty hug of greeting and Branra grinned widely. But there was little time to enjoy this reunion. Danaer relayed the sobering news concerning Hablit's presence in the city and Yistar's death. Branra's swarthy face clouded with rage. "That will be avenged, I swear, and Hablit's treachery. But now we must away from here. Time draws very sharp."
Danaer helped to harness an ill-matched team to the last wagon while Gordyan rode toward a junctioning street, chasing Dekans away from killing several soldiers trying to reach the square. Danaer urged Lira to get into the wagon with the wounded, but she would not do so until the last injured man was aboard.
A great din filled the streets, and Danaer admired Branra's ability to make any sense out of the confusion. Then a troopman came riding from the inner city, shouting above the other noises, "They come, my lord!
They have flung wide the gates, and the eastern walls are entirely theirs!"
Branra added his weight to Danaer's arguments now, telling Lira, "It is proper that you should ride in the wagon, my lady sorkra. We have done our duty to Deki and must flee and continue the war elsewhere."
With much reluctance, she obeyed, barely in time, for the driver lashed up the team. Lira looked back at Danaer, calling to him, her words torn away in the uproar. He caught up the reins of his roan as horses and men bumped over panic-strewn cobblestones. Close beside Branra, Danaer rode around a pile of wrecked carts, following the wagon. Then something caught the corner of his vision, making him look upward.
An immense shadow was descending from Deki's lofty roofs, dropping down steeply into the square. Danaer gaped incredulously, jerking his horse to a stop, and Branra cried, "By the nme thousand devils of Bogotana, what is that?"
The underbelly was in darkness, but feathery body and wings were limned in white as the sun glanced off the diving creature—a snake! An unbelievable and hideous winged snake, gigantic and savage! Great flapping pinions reached out the length of three men's bodies on either side of a serpentine form, and its jaws were wide, terrible fangs dripping as it swooped, spiral-ing toward the center of the square, lizardy eyes seeking its prey.
Man and beast screamed and sought to flee, and grasping claws appeared from the snake-bird's under-parts, talons finding flesh, tearing the head of a horse from the brute's body, then slashing death blows as a line of stragglers tried to follow the departing wagons. Blood and flesh were scattered in the demon thmg s wake as it flapped and rose and swirled about agam, coming for the attack.
Yistar's snake! The dying man had spoken true, not out of delirium! And this was the awful monster which had brought him to his death. Danaer's fear was overborne by hatred, and he forced his frantic roan to answer his command, riding breakneck, seeing where the. snake-bird would try to strike next.
"My Lord Branra! Guard yourself! It comes for you as it came for Straedanfi!"
Superb horseman that he was, Branra pulled back his mount skillfully and the unholy serpent rushed by him, its murderous fangs and talons missing him by fingers'-breadths.
"Can it be slain?" Branra shouted.
Danaer remembered the attack in Ulodovors chambers. "They can be killed. I have done so."
"Then at it!"
As the creature swooped by again, they fought their terrified horses and struggled to land a blow. Danaer exclaimed with triumph as he felt his sword bite clean and hard . . . into nothing! The terrible demon flew up unhurt, beating scaly white wings to gain height and turn and come again at them.
Danaer stared at his sword. There was no trace of blood on it, yet he was sure he had not misjudged. He had cut the thing!
At the edge of the square, Lira was chmbing out of the wagon, dropping down to the stones, then holding up her arms. She was not safe, leaving the city, but staying to conjure at the Markuand snake-bird! The monster wanted Branra, but would he not want to destroy Lira even more? Danaer sucked in his breath, fearing for her.
But the demon was concentrating on Branra, closing, trying to rend him. Branra was the man who could best lead the survivors of the fallen city and hearten soldiers to turn and fight again. Well did the Markuand wizard select his prey!
And Branra would not be daunted, still trying to strike back, crying that he would have vengeance for Captain Yistar. The gaping snake's maw opened, glistening, deadly sharp fangs exposed. A leathery wing brushed Danaer's helmet and a stench gushed at him from the
monster's mouth, a reek to steal a man's breath while he defended himself. The snake-bird hovered, beating the air, aiming for its kill.
Danaer wielded his sword in both hands, futilely, hacking at slime-bright scales and feathers, enraged by
his powerlessness. He deftly sheathed the sword and drew his bronze belt knife, flinging it fair into the demon's ugly throat—to no effect!
Lira was swaying, gesticulating, and Danaer felt a renewal of the cold and blackness gathering in response to her spell-casting. But would it be in time, and could she succeed without her Web? Danaer prayed to the goddess and willed his being joined with her talisman, then reached for his steel boot knife, though with little hope.
Branra did not wait. He was hoarse from shouting defiance at the evil snake and somehow yet found voice to bellow, "Now!" The blade which had scourged the Tradyan tribes slashed into the scaly neck just as the demon tried to pluck Branra from his saddle.
Black steam poured from a terrible wound, and a shriek from the Death God's realm split the air. Outspread wings spasmed in agony, showering scales and feathers like rain. Falling, ichor spurting, the snake-bird crashed into Branra's black, overtoppling the horse and crushing it down to the cobblestones. Hurriedly Danaer rode out of its way as the monster writhed in its death throes. Keeping reins tightly in hand, not trusting the panicky roan overmuch, he jumped down and ran forward to help Branra. The officer was stunned by his fall, about to be trapped beneath both animals.
"Quickly, my lord, take my arm!"
A ghastly serpentine head lay across the dead horse, a black gore pouring forth, puddling under men and beasts. Branra's own blood flowed from a bad scalp cut. He clung to Danaer reflexively, kicking free. Staggering, he tried to put his sword back in its sheath, needing Danaer's help, so dazed was he.
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