That accomplished, he walked his horse forward, sang, and accompanied himself on the yarting, like any wandering minstrel seeking a cordial welcome. On the surface, the song was simply the familiar ditty "The Eagle and the Mouse," but he wove magic through the lines. Enough, he hoped, to beguile the guards and keep them from loosing arrows at him before he drew close enough for conversation.
He paced the tune to conclude just as he reached the mass of people clustered in front of him. By then, charmed, perhaps, by his music, two Red Wizards had stepped forth to meet him. Both were young, which he supposed made sense: Their seniors were surely above the mundane chore of transporting slaves across country. It likewise gave him reason for hope. Older Red Wizards were wealthy almost without exception, but neophytes might still be striving to make their fortunes, hence that much more susceptible to bribery.
Bareris crooned words that would keep his steed from wandering or getting into mischief, swung himself down from the saddle, and dropped to one knee in front of the Red Wizards. The show of respect was arguably excessive. By custom, a bow would have sufficed, but he wanted to flatter them.
"You can stand up," said the one on the right. He had jam stains on his robe and a bulge of paunch beneath it, though his spindly Mulan frame was still lean elsewhere. In time, that was likely to change if he didn't master his love of sweets. "That was a fine song."
" 'That was a fine song,' " mimicked the other mage, his face tattooed in black and white to make it resemble a naked skull, and the fellow with the soiled robe winced at the sneer in his voice. "Who are you, sirrah?"
As a Mulan, Bareris was entitled to a more respectful mode of address, even from a Red Wizard, but he chose not to make an issue of it. "Bareris Anskuld, sir."
"Apparently," said the skull-faced wizard, "you've been following us."
"Yes, sir, all the way from Tyraturos."
The leaner mage sneered at his partner. "So much for your promise to cover our tracks. Have you ever done anything right?"
The jam lover flinched. "I reanimated the child just the way our master taught us, and Calmevik was supposed to be one of the best assassins in the city. Everybody said so."
Bareris's mouth turned dry as dust, and a chill oozed up his back. The trap in the alley hadn't been an essentially random misfortune after all. The Red Wizards were so determined on secrecy that they'd left minions behind to kill anyone inquiring into their business, and now he, idiot that he was, had delivered himself into their murderous clutches.
Yet he still had his enchantment heightening his powers of persuasion and other tricks held in reserve. Perhaps, unlikely as it seemed, he could still steer this confrontation where he wanted it to go. It was either that or try to run, and with Tammith's desperate, yearning eyes on him, the latter was a choice he simply couldn't make.
Feigning perplexity, he said, "Are you joking with me, Masters? I didn't meet this Calmevik or anyone who tried to hurt me. I'm just… do you see that pretty lass over there?" He pointed.
The skull-faced necromancer nodded. "The one who's been staring at you. Of course."
"Well, just as I followed you all the way north from Tyraturos, I tracked her all the way from Bezantur, where she sold herself into slavery just tendays ago as the result of a tragic misunderstanding. She thought her family needed the gold, but they didn't. She had no way of knowing I was already bound for home after years abroad, coming back to marry her with enough gold in my purse to support her and her kin forever after."
The black- and bone-colored face sneered. "How terribly sad, but it's no concern of ours."
"I understand that," Bareris said, "but I'm begging for your help." He couldn't break into actual song, or the Red Wizards would likely realize he was casting a spell, but he pitched and cadenced his voice in such a way as to imply melody in an effort to render himself still more charismatic and persuasive. "I've loved Tammith ever since we were children growing up in the gutters of Bezantur. It wasn't an easy life for a Mulan child whose family had fallen in poverty. Older boys bullied and beat me, and one day, even though she was of Rashemi descent herself, Tammith came to my aid. We both wound up with bruises and black eyes, on that day and others subsequent, but she never once regretted befriending me. That's the kind of loyal, courageous spirit she possesses. The spirit of someone who deserves a better life that slavery."
The wizard with the flabby belly looked caught up in the story, perhaps even touched by it. Bareris wasn't surprised. The mage had the air or someone who'd likewise been bullied in his time, but if his partner was mellowing, it wasn't apparent from his demeanor.
Still, if a tale of love couldn't move him, maybe baser considerations would. "So I've come to buy her out of bondage," Bareris continued, "and I'll pay well, more than she can possibly be worth to anyone but the man who loves her." He opened one of the hidden pockets in his sword belt, extracted three of the diamonds he and his former comrades had found cached in a dragon-worshiper stronghold, and proffered them in his palm for everyone to see. Even in the failing light, the stones gleamed, and impressed, warriors cursed or murmured to one another. "One jewel for each of you wizards, another for your retainers."
The pudgy mage swallowed as if greed had dried his throat. "Perhaps we could make some sort of arrangement," he said, then stiffened as if expecting his colleague to rebuke him.
But the other necromancer simply smirked and said, "Yes, why not? As the troubadour said, it's a great deal of coin, and what's a single slave one way or the other?" He stretched out his hand, and Bareris gave him the diamonds. "It's a bargain then. The wench is yours. Take her and ride away."
Tammith cried Bareris's name and ran toward him. He turned to catch her in his arms. It should have been a moment of supreme exultation, but he realized that all he felt was fear.
Because it was too easy. Yes, he'd cast glamours that predisposed others to indulge him, sometimes even in defiance of their own best interests or common sense, and had offered treasure in addition, but the mage with the tattooed face had never appeared to fall under the influence of the spells, and the grim truth was he and his fellow necromancer were obviously supposed to keep their mission a secret, which would seem to preclude permitting Bareris and Tammith to depart to talk of what they'd seen.
Had Bareris been in the necromancer's position, and had he, like so many Red Wizards, felt scant obligation to honor a pledge given to an inferior, he might well have pretended to accede to his petitioner's pleas just to put him off his guard. Then he'd attack as soon as a good opportunity presented itself.
Yet Bareris couldn't simply assume treachery and strike first. He didn't dare start an unnecessary fight when, outnumbered as he was, he had so little hope of winning it. Weeping, Tammith flung herself into his embrace, kissed him, and babbled endearments. He hugged her but couldn't reply in kind. He was busy listening.
Yet even so, the necromancer with the tattooed face whispered so softly that for a moment, Bareris wasn't sure if he was actually hearing his voice or only imagining it. Then he felt a subtle prickling on his skin that warned of magic coming into being.
He whirled, dragging the startled Tammith around with him, and shouted. Bardic power amplified the cry into a thunderous boom capable of bruising flesh and cracking bone. The sound smashed the Red Wizard off his feet, and for an instant, Bareris dared to hope he'd killed him, but no, for he started to get up again.
Still, at least Bareris had disrupted the other man's spellcasting, and in so doing, he bought himself a moment he hoped to use to good effect. He beckoned to his horse. Ordinarily, the mare wouldn't have responded to such a gesture, but steed and rider still shared the empathic bond he'd sung into being just before he'd dismounted, and she came running.
He poised himself to leap onto the horse's back and haul Tammith up behind him, but having drawn himself to one knee, his black-and-white skull face now streaked with blood, the lean necromancer brandished a talisman. A bolt of crackling darkness leaped from the
charm to spear the mare from behind. She shriveled as though starving past the point of emaciation in a single heartbeat, and her legs gave way beneath her. She crashed to the ground, shuddered, and lay still.
The injured wizard lurched to his feet but evidently couldn't stand straight. Rather, he held himself doubled over as if his midsection was particularly painful. He looked about, no doubt taking in the fact that neither his fellow necromancer nor any of their servants had yet moved to attack or otherwise hinder Bareris. Perhaps the enchantments the bard had cast still influenced them even now, or maybe hostilities had simply erupted too suddenly.
"Get him!" the Red Wizard screamed. "Get him, and we'll divide up all his jewels! But take him alive! A true bard will be useful!"
The guards readied their weapons and closed in from all sides. Bareris whipped out his sword and struggled to hold back panic and think. If they hoped to take him alive, that would hamper them a little. If he could somehow seize another horse-
Why then, he thought, the wizards would simply blast the animal out from under Tammith and him as they tried to ride away, or else the guards would shoot it full of arrows. Before the enemy readied themselves for battle, there had existed a slim chance of fleeing successfully on horseback, but it was gone now.
"Give me a knife," Tammith said. He could hear the fear in her voice, but only because he knew her so well. He handed her a blade and she positioned herself so they could protect one another's backs. "I'm sorry you came for me, sorry this is happening, but glad I got to kiss you one last time."
"It wasn't the last time."
In fact, he knew it very likely had been, but he wouldn't abandon hope even in his private thoughts, wouldn't defeat himself and save the enemy the trouble. Maybe he and Tammith could at least kill a few of the bastards before the remainder overwhelmed them.
Blood orcs shrieked their harrowing cry and charged. Bareris chanted, and power stung and shivered down his limbs. Tammith gasped as she experienced the same sensation.
The world, including the onrushing orcs, slowed down, or at least that was how it appeared. In reality, Bareris knew, he and Tammith were moving more quickly. The enchantment had given him a critical advantage in other combats, and he could only pray it would again.
A whip whirled at his calves. Had it connected, it would have wrapped around his legs and bound them together, but he leaped over the arc of the stroke and slashed the eyes of an orc armed with a cudgel. That put another guard behind him, in position to bash his head with the pommel of its scimitar. It was too sluggish, though, compared to his unnatural celerity. He pivoted, sliced its belly, turned, stepped, and hacked open the throat of the brute with the whip while it was still drawing the rawhide lash back for a second stroke.
That finished all the foes immediately in front of him, and it was then that he heard Tammith half cry, half gasp his name. It was possible she'd been screaming for a moment or two, and he'd been too intent on the blood orcs to hear.
He turned. Another guard, a human on horseback, had looped a whip around Tammith's neck and was lifting her off her feet, essentially garroting her in the process. She flailed with her knife but couldn't connect. Neither her bravery nor the charm of speed sufficed to counter the warrior's advantages of superior strength and skill.
Bareris sprang in and cut at the guard's left wrist, and his blade bit to the bone. The horseman dropped the whip and Tammith with it. Blood spurting from his gashed extremity, features as bestial with rage and pain as the tusked, piggish face of any of the orcs, he prompted his mount-a trained war-horse, evidently-to rear and try to batter Bareris with its front hooves.
Bareris sidestepped and thrust his point into the animal's side. The destrier fell sideways, carrying its rider with it. They hit the ground hard and lay motionless thereafter.
Bareris cast about and found Tammith, a raw red welt now striping her neck, standing just behind him. "I'm sorry," she said.
He realized she meant she was sorry she hadn't managed to kill the rider with the whip, sorry Bareris had needed to save her. "It's all right." It occurred to him that the two dead horses sprawled on the ground constituted obstacles of sorts. If he and Tammith stood between them, it would make it difficult for very many of their foes to come at them at once. "Come on." He scrambled to the proper position, and she followed.
There he began another song. It would strengthen and steady them, and he could weave specific spells through the melody as needed. Pivoting, he peered to see who meant to attack him next.
A rider with a net spurred his mount into a canter. Crouching, blood orcs circled as if they hoped to clamber over the top of one of the dead horses and take their adversaries by surprise.
Then the wizard with the tattooed face shouted, "Stop! You imbeciles are next to useless, but I can't afford to lose all of you. Forget about taking the minstrel alive, and don't go within reach of his sword, either. Shoot him and his whore, and So-Kehur and I will smite them with spells." He gave Bareris a vicious smile. "Unless, of course, you prefer to surrender."
"Don't," Tammith whispered. "I don't know what they'll do to us if we give up, but I'm sure it will be terrible."
Bareris suspected she was right, yet what was the alternative? To condemn her to die here and now? For while the two of them had evaded capture and injury thus far, it was obvious they no longer had any chance of getting away. It was only the Red Wizard's order to take them alive that had provided even the illusion of hope, and that was no longer in effect.
"We have to surrender," he said, "and hope we can escape later on. Set the knife on the ground." He stooped to do the same with his sword, and then someone gave a startled yell.
Bareris looked around to see slaves scrambling in all directions. Evidently they shared Tammith's conviction that some ghastly fate awaited them at the end of their trek, and they'd decided to take advantage of their keepers' distraction to make a break for freedom.
"Stop them!" the necromancer with the flabby midsection-evidently his name was So-Kehur-wailed.
Some of the guards obeyed. Horsemen galloped and wheeled to cut the thralls off. A blood orc dashed after a group of fleeing men and started slashing them down from behind, evidently on the assumption that if it killed enough of them, the slaughter would cow the rest into giving up.
Of course, not every warrior turned his back on Tammith and Bareris, but as best the bard could judge, even those who hadn't seemed momentarily flummoxed. So, for that matter, did the necromancers. Perhaps he had a hope left after all.
"Follow me!" he said to Tammith. He bellowed a battle cry and charged.
For an instant, he considered running at So-Kehur. Evidently worthless in a crisis, the round-bellied mage had yet to cast a spell and was surely an easier mark than the skull-faced warlock. He must possess an extraordinary aptitude for some aspect of sorcery, or else exceptionally good family connections, to account for his induction into an order of Red Wizards despite the lack of iron in his soul.
The problem was that even if they were of equivalent rank, it was plainly the necromancer with the tattooed face who'd taken charge of the caravan. Should they find themselves at odds, he was the one the warriors would obey, and just to make matters worse, he obviously held his fellow mage in contempt. Bareris could easily imagine himself grabbing So-Kehur, using him as a shield, threatening him with his sword, and having the tattooed wizard laugh and order his underlings to go ahead and shoot them both.
No, if Bareris was going to take a hostage, it had to be the skull-faced mage himself, and so he ran straight at him. He prayed Tammith was still following close behind him but didn't dare waste the instant it would take to glance back and find out.
An arrow whistled past his head. An orc scrambled to block his path, and he split its skull. For a moment, his sword stuck in the wound, but then he managed to yank it free, flinging drops of blood through the air in the process.
Realizing his peril, the skull-faced necromancer brandished the talisman
that had killed Bareris's horse, a round medallion, the bard now observed, fashioned of ebony and bone. He wrenched himself to the side, and the jagged blaze of shadow missed him by a finger length.
He raced onward. Just a few more strides would carry him within striking distance of his foe, and with enchantment quickening his actions, he had reason for hope that his adversary didn't have time to attempt any more magic.
But the necromancer had a trick in reserve. Even as his body backed away, his face seemed to spring forward like a striking snake. In reality, Bareris perceived, it was the tattooed skull mask that had torn free of his skin, and as it did, it rounded itself into a snarling head, and a gaunt, decaying body materialized beneath it. It had, in fact, become a ghoul, a slave creature or familiar the Red Wizard had carried inside his own body to evoke in a moment of ultimate need.
Startled by the vile-smelling thing's unexpected materialization, Bareris faltered. The ghoul leaped, its jagged, filthy nails ripping at his face. They nearly snagged him, but then trained reflex twisted him out of the way. He hacked at the bumpy ridge of spine in the corpse eater's withered back, and the undead's legs buckled beneath it.
Bareris sprinted on. Looking unexpectedly soft-featured and callow with his macabre mask stripped away, the Red Wizard lifted his talisman for another blast. Bareris had believed he was already running his fastest, but somehow he achieved an extra iota of speed to close the distance. He cut at the necromancer's hand, and the medallion and severed ringers tumbled through the air.
At that instant, Bareris hated the wizard, relished hurting him, and had to remind himself that he needed him alive. He shoved the necromancer down onto the grass, lifted his sword to threaten him-
A voice chanted rhyming words, and the ambient temperature fluctuated wildly. Bareris realized So-Kehur wasn't entirely useless after all. He'd finally found the presence of mind to cast a spell.
Something stabbed into the middle of Bareris's back. It didn't hurt, precisely, but weakness streamed outward from the site like ink diffusing through water. His sword suddenly felt too heavy to support. The blade dropped, and the hilt nearly pulled itself from his grasp. He collapsed to his knees.
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