Shadowbred_ The Twilight War Part 28

I bend, grab the front of the dugout, and heave.

I laugh when I lift the front off the ground and it sounds the same as the mad laughter from the voice at the wall.

A howl from nearby. Another. Close. I hear crackling in the woods.

They are coming for me.

"Move," I say to myself. "Move." My arms burn. My legs feel like lead. But I drag the boat through the undergrowth, slipping, struggling, grunting, cursing.

In my mind I imagine the dark things prowling through the forest, following my scent-the scent of fear. The image keeps me going, pushes me on.

I lose my footing, curse, get up, and yank the boat forward another stretch. The strength in my legs is fading. My breath is a bellows. Fatigue makes me dizzy. When is the last time I had water?

I can hear the river's current ahead through the trees.

"Almost there," I say. "Keep moving."

Movement behind me turns me around. I see two black forms perched in the fat lower limbs of two cypress trees. Each is as large as a mastiff. They look vaguely manlike, with a head and four limbs, but their skin looks as smooth as oiled leather.

They howl and their mouths are voids. The sound steals my breath. They leap from one tree to another, deftly landing on large limbs. Leaves shower the earth. The fears' oval heads lack facial features save for three wet vertical slits where their nostrils should be, and a gash for a mouth. Spiderwebs of spit hang between their open jaws.

I cannot help myself-I catch my breath and scream with terror. Pointed tongues emerge from their mouths and taste the air, taste the fear.

Terror energizes me. I fairly pick up the boat and scramble for the river. I hit the bank, see the flowing water below.

I hear the fears leap to the ground and I spare a glance back. Sweat drips into my eyes. The fears howl, and up close, the sound is nauseatingly wet. They bound forward on all fours, leaping through the undergrowth, heads jutting forward, strides eating the distance.

I turn, give a pull for all I am worth, and get the boat over the top of the riverbank.

Behind me, the fears crash through the undergrowth, breaking saplings. I hear their wet respiration. They are nearly upon me.

I push the boat over the bank, run beside it as it descends the slope, and hop in as it picks up speed. The bow hits the water and its movement stalls. I jump out, heart racing, not daring to look back, and get behind it and shove.

"Move, G.o.dsdammit! Move!"

The voice at the wall laughs.

"The G.o.ds d.a.m.n you straight to the Nine h.e.l.ls!" I swear, and push, and push, and push.

"Mind what you wish," the voice says.

The fears growl from atop the bank. I cringe, expecting an impact at any moment. I do not even think to draw my blade; I only want to run.

The boat moves farther into the river and the current seizes it. I lose my grip on it, curse, run as best I can through thigh-high water, grab it, and pull myself in without tipping it.

I lay in it face up, staring at the cracked sky. I realize too late that I do not have an oar or anything else with which to steer but I do not care. Sweating, terrified, I sit up, draw the mind blade, and stare back at the receding riverbank.

I do not see the fears. They are gone.

For the moment.

CHAPTER TWELVE

5 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms.

Cale, Tamlin, and the Uskevren house guards rode at a moderate pace. By the end of the first day out, they had pa.s.sed through the ring of villages that surrounded Selgaunt-most of them empty, or nearly so-and entered the rolling, open countryside. To Cale's relief, Vos proved as easy a ride as Stormweather's groom had promised. By the end of the second day, Cale felt reasonably comfortable in the saddle, enough so that he could enjoy the pastoral air and scenery rather than focus on staying seated.

Stands of larch and small woods of oak, elm, and maple broke the monotony of the whipgra.s.s plains. Rauthauvyr's Road stretched before them to the horizon. An overcast sky hung ominously over the land, but the rain held off and the drought persisted.

At Tamlin's instruction, the company skirted the villages and cl.u.s.ters of farmsteads that they pa.s.sed. Ordinarily, a village would be expected to provide shelter and hospitality to someone of Tamlin's station. Tamlin did not want to burden the difficult lives of the villagers by requiring that they abide by custom.

"We will sleep under the sky," Tamlin instructed Ren and the house guards. "And eat only our own stores."

Cale credited him for that.

Tension remained palpable between Cale and Tamlin. They spoke only as necessary and Cale feared his candor back in Stormweather had put a wedge between them that would not be easily removed. Cale tried to loosen it. "My lord, if I am to be your advisor, I must be able to speak openly."

Tamlin, riding beside him, did not make eye contact. "You have shown already that you are willing to do exactly that, Mister Cale. When I require advice, I will ask for it."

Cale held his tongue and that was that.

As they traveled farther from Selgaunt, they pa.s.sed fewer and fewer villages and farms. Those they saw looked as bad as tales had said. The drought and recent catastrophes had left the fields stricken. Most sat fallow or featured sickly crops of shriveled vegetables scrabbling to survive in the cracked, dry earth. Even the barley looked wan, and it ordinarily tolerated dryness. They stopped often at streams and ponds, all of them lower than normal, to water the horses and fill their waterskins.

"I had no idea things were this bad," Tamlin said to no one in particular.

Around midday on the fourth day out, the gray sky departed without dropping any rain and the noon sun emerged to sting Cale's skin. He wore his hood down despite the discomfort, and he often caught Tamlin staring at his wrist. Finally Cale held up the stump, which would regenerate a shadowhand when the sun set.

"It is no blessing, my lord," he said to Tamlin. He spoke softly, so as not to be overheard by the house guards.

Tamlin regarded him coolly. "So you say. But I have been reading what I can of shades and shadow magic." He nodded at the books he had carried from Stormweather, which he kept in his saddlebags. "You will age as slowly as a mountain. Disease is nothing to you. Your flesh resists magic. That sounds a blessing to me."

The words were as much as Tamlin had spoken to him at a stretch since setting out, but Cale did not welcome them. He had known other men to use the same words when questing for power. Always such ambitions turned out badly.

"I did not endure this willingly," he said, though the words were a half-truth. "And I have heard others speak of power in the same tone you use. I would advise you to spend your energies on more wholesome studies."

"And I did not ask for your advice," Tamlin said, and spurred his horse forward.

Cale let him go but stared at his back, concerned and irritated. Tamlin looked at Cale's transformation and saw only power, not the price Cale had paid for it.

Cale shook his head, felt eyes on him, turned, and found Ren staring at him from atop his horse. Their eyes met. Ren nodded and his glance went to Cale's stump. Cale pulled his sleeve over his hand and nodded back at Ren.

Cale rode for a time in silence. Late in the afternoon, the group crossed paths with two southbound caravans out of the town of Ornstar, but the caravaneers carried no news. The road was otherwise deserted. Cale thought it strange.

Alone with his thoughts as he rode, Cale's mind turned to Magadon. He'd had no more dreams of Magadon since returning to Selgaunt. He was concerned about what it might mean for his friend. Mask had said Magadon would suffer. But he had also said that events in Sembia would lead Cale to Magadon. Cale reached into his pocket, touched his mask, and chose to believe that Mask had not lied to him. He was not sure he was being wise.

That night, the house guards went about the business of setting up tents, tending the horses, starting a fire, and doling out the food stores. Cale kept his regenerated hand covered by his sleeve as best he could, but it proved difficult. Yet no one seemed to notice it but Ren and Tamlin. Cale at last pulled Ren aside and showed him his shadowhand.

Ren eyed it with wonder. "How, Mister Cale? A cleric of Ilmater?"

"No, not a cleric," Cale said.

Ren held up his own maimed hand. "How then? Can I do the same?"

Cale sighed. "We are comrades, Ren-you and I, not so?"

Ren nodded. "Yes. Without any doubt. You saved my life."

"Then I want you to hear my words. The hand regenerates in darkness, and only in darkness, because of what I have been changed into."

He let shadows leak from his skin and Ren's eyes widened. Cale continued. "This transformation I would wish on no one, and certainly not on a man as young as you. It was an accident, happenstance."

Cale was not sure the last was the truth.

Ren looked again at his maimed hand, thoughtful. He looked into Cale's face, his gaze steady.

"I have trouble holding a shield strap. And I still feel them sometimes, the fingers, as if they were still there. Tell me this, Mister Cale-would you sacrifice the hand, even at night, to have yourself back as you were?"

Cale stared into Ren's eyes, considered lying, but decided against it. "No. But only because I need to be what I have become in order to ... do the things I must do. That is hard to understand but I cannot explain it better, Ren. I do not understand it myself any better than that. If things were different, I would feel differently."

Ren looked at his fingers, chuckled. "h.e.l.ls, losing the fingers made me the man I am today. It's strange, that. I hear your words, Mister Cale. Sometimes a price is too high. Even Sembians know that."

Cale thumped him on the shoulder. "You are wiser than your years, Ren. And call me Erevis. No more Mister Cale, eh?"

Ren smiled. "Erevis, then. I'll admit it feels peculiar to me."

Cale felt better for having been honest with Ren. Something in Ren reminded him of Magadon, and a little of himself as a younger man.

They joined the house guards around the fire and ate the fare that had been set out-cheese, bread, salted beef and pork. Several barrels of strong ale and bottles of wine from the Uskevren vineyards provided drink. Cale was pleased to see that none of the house guards drank to excess. Ren's men were professionals, as was Ren.

Cale smoked Jak's pipe and jested with the men. One of the house guards, Maur, pulled out his own metal-bowled pipe and lit. He and Cale traded pipeweed. Cale told and retold the guards of his rescue of Ren at the Twisted Elm, of his battle with the shadow demon in Stormweather's great hall. He kept his other stories to himself, even when talk turned to the causes of the Rain of Fire. Most of the men thought it was connected somehow to the Rage of Dragons. Cale knew better.

As was his wont since beginning the journey, the hulorn remained in his tent, reading his tomes on shadow magic until late in the night. Cale looked over at the tent often, worrying about Tamlin.

Though they expected no trouble on a main road through Sembia, the house guards nevertheless set a watch at night. Cale had taken to supplementing the watch. He had little need for sleep. He felt as awake in the deep of night as he did at dawn. Darkness heightened his senses, sharpened his edge, and he had little else to do after moonset.

After retiring for an hour, he awakened shortly before midnight and rose in silence. He willed the darkness to make him invisible and stepped out of his tent. Cloaked in shadow, he sat alone around the dying embers of the night's fire. They had camped in a slight depression near a wood of birch and oak. The wind set the trees to whispering.

Cale intertwined his fingers behind his head and stared up at the stars. His mind turned to Varra, the cottage, Jak, Magadon. He let his thoughts drift. The wind died and the sounds of the night filled his ears: the chirp of crickets and the clicking of an insect he did not recognize, the coo of a whippoorwill from within the wood, the soft hum of the breeze, the- A metallic sound carried to his ears, very faint, like the rattle of a buckle. He sat up quickly and looked about.

Maur, the house guard on watch, stood at his post to Cale's right but the sound had come from somewhere to the left, somewhere out of sight. Maur showed no sign of having heard anything.

Still invisible, Cale stood and shadowstepped to the high ground at the top of the depression. There, he scanned the plains. The shadowstuff in him allowed him to see clearly by night, but only as far as a bowshot or so. He saw nothing but waving, knee-high whipgra.s.s and some trees here and there.

He remained still and listened.

There. The metallic sound repeated from somewhere out in the gra.s.s. Cale acted quickly. He let the shadows dissolve from him so he would be visible and stepped through the darkness to materialize behind Maur. He put his hand around the house guard's mouth and pulled him backward.

The house guard squirmed and grunted for a moment until Cale whispered, "I heard something out in the plains. It's probably nothing. I will investigate. If I do not return soon, alert the camp."

He released Maur and the house guard turned to face him, eyes wide. "Tempus's blades, Mister Cale. You almost stopped my heart."

"Stay alert," Cale said, and without waiting for a reply, stepped through the shadows back to the plains. He was a dagger's throw away from the camp and could see Maur behind him, tense and watchful, staring out into the gra.s.s.

He eyed the area around him, saw nothing. He drew Weaveshear, slowly and silently. Shadows leaked ponderously from the blade and dissipated into the night air. Once more he drew the darkness around him.

Invisible and silent, he prowled the gra.s.s. The tension drew sweat and shadows from his flesh. A sound from ahead of him, an overloud intake of breath, betrayed his prey's location.

Cale estimated the distance to his unseen foe, stepped through the darkness, covering ten paces with a stride, and found himself standing over a human man crouched in the gra.s.s with a knife between his teeth. Cale must have heard him breathing over the blade.

Cale almost missed seeing the man, so well did he blend with his surroundings. The man's cloak perfectly matched the gra.s.s and darkness-a magical effect, no doubt-and Cale might not have seen him at all had he not thrown back his hood, revealing a narrow face and short, dark hair.

Cale froze, hovering over the man, blade bare, shadows swirling.

The man tensed and c.o.c.ked his head as if he sensed Cale nearby. He turned and poked his head above the gra.s.s, looking toward the camp, looking through Cale.

Seeing nothing, the man returned to his crouch and used the knife to tighten a loose buckle on his calf-high boots. No doubt the bouncing buckle had caused the metallic sound Cale had heard.

The man pulled up his hood and stood, and his cloak changed appearance to keep him camouflaged. He looked once more on the camp. He appeared able to see despite the darkness, leaving Cale to a.s.sume he was magically empowered with night sight.

Seemingly satisfied, the man turned and headed off at a steady run. Cale decided not to kill him-yet. He sheathed Weaveshear and followed in silence.

The magic of the man's cloak masked him well even on the move, but Cale was able to stay close enough to keep him in sight. The man made almost no sound, even at a trot. Cale marked him as a professional-a spy or scout. The man headed directly for a pair of tall larches about three hundred paces off. He slowed as he approached the trees and pulled back his hood.

Cale stayed with him as another man emerged from the darkness of the trees. He was taller, eight or nine winters older, and wearing a cloak similar to the first man's. They hailed each other in silence and did not speak until they were nearly face to face.

Cale crept forward, low to the ground, and strained his ears to hear.

"... only a single guard. Could have put him down myself and moved through the camp."

Not likely, Cale thought.

The taller man nodded. "Did you mark the livery, Othel? They're Selgauntans and that's certain."

"There's not even a score of men," Othel said.

"Should be easy work," the taller man said.

With that, they set off, moving in a line to the north of the camp. Cale stayed with them. They ran for perhaps half a league and slowed to a walk as they neared a drought-dried pond ringed by tall elms. Both removed their cloaks as they approached.

Cale shadowstepped ahead of them into the trees and saw gathered there a force of over one hundred men. All wore chain hauberks, bore shields and blades, and wore on their green tabards the golden wagon wheel of Ordulin.