Chasers of the Wind (21 page)

It crossed Typhoid’s mind that it might not be a childlike girl-prodigy standing against her, but a Walker from the Council.

No. What nonsense. The Mother
(the leader of the Walkers. She is selected by a majority vote of the Council of Walkers, thirty-three of the strongest mages in the Empire)
would never send one of her daughters on a suicide mission. Besides, if the girl were a Walker, she never would have exposed herself like this. But all the same, she should exercise caution and look before she leaped.

The Damned snapped her fingers and the room darkened for a moment. The shadows condensed and twisted into the shape of a black raven. It cawed hoarsely and flew out the window, breaking the glass.

Putting on her shirt as she went and cursing at the stiffness of her boots, Tia ran out the door.

*   *   *

I had seen Layen’s Gift in action more than once or twice. But even in my most daring dreams I never imagined she was capable of this.

The roof of our house flew up to the sky with a roar and a crash. The solid pine logs, from which the walls were constructed, flew apart in all directions like kindling. My eyes stung from the cloud of dust enshrouding us and, frankly speaking, it was not easy to breathe. Also, I feared that while we couldn’t see any farther than our own noses, the Morts would seize the moment and hack us into tiny chunks. But my fears were for naught; no one rushed in to attack us. Midge was swearing and blaspheming so loudly that, should Melot catch wind of his clamoring, Whip’s companion would never see the inside of the Blessed Gardens. Bamut was trying to support his comrade in the high art of swearing, but by the fifth word he began coughing and couldn’t continue.

Eventually the dust began to settle. I stood right by Layen, protecting her from any possible dangers. My chance companions, on the other hand, tried to move as far away from her as possible. Idiots! Did they really not have enough brains to realize that we wouldn’t make it a hundred yards down the street without her magical protection?

Despite the lull, I did not take my arrow away from the bowstring. Who knew what might jump out at us? It’s thoughtless, at the very least, to be absently picking your nose when trouble threatens. You might just get your hand cut off while you’re pulling out your finger. Layen wasn’t counting crows either. The staff was unambiguously pointed at the spot where the door used to be. I have to say, the necromancer’s bauble unnerved me. No, there was nothing calming about a hissing skull, obviously displeased with the sudden change in its master.

Layen noticed my anxious gaze and said soothingly,
I have a hold on it.

Hold tight,
I advised just in case.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that thing bites.

Believe me, that’s the very least it’s capable of
. She chuckled.

Then humor me and don’t take your eyes off it. Drop it if it starts to lash out.
I turned to Whip’s team and yelled, “Let’s move!”

We headed out into the yard and rejoiced at the sight of the Morts, who had been ripped to shreds by Layen’s spell. The warriors of the Waste were no more solid than the walls of my house. One of the Sdisian’s servants had survived more or less intact, but he’d been crushed by a beam. And even he looked as if he’d been chewed up.

The house was gone, as was the hedge. While my companions coughed, spat, wiped their eyes and cursed, I peeked out into the street and let out a dazed whistle. Pine planking and logs were strewn about the entire neighborhood. The cottages of our closest neighbors had also suffered greatly from the blast. There were no people in sight. They were hiding under their beds and in their cellars. You wouldn’t be able to drag them out for a week. Well, that was to the good; there’d be less hassle with no one crawling around underfoot. I pulled my axe from the body of the Mort I’d slain.

“Is everything all right?” asked Layen as she walked up to me.

“Yes. It’s just not every day that you see the roof of your house learn to fly.” My smile came out crooked. “As it turns out, I know very little about your talents.”

“Fortunately, I didn’t have the need to demonstrate them before,” she replied a bit too casually. “Let’s go. The khilss sucks out magic. I don’t have enough for long.”

I didn’t immediately realize that she was speaking about the necromancer’s staff. I think it’s likely that if you gave that thing free rein, it would suck out not just your magic, but your soul as well.

“We’ll talk later,” I agreed.

My troops looked like they’d spent the better part of the past year crawling around a badger’s tunnel. They were as filthy as Blazogs in a swamp. And as enraged as Nirits after an offense to their queen. Midge was cursing a blue streak, not even pausing for breath. Whip was still coughing and looking in all directions with streaming eyes. Bamut was the only one who was not wasting any time. He held his crossbow at the ready, and was intently watching the street on the chance that someone might want to come and find out what had happened here.

Shen sneezed loudly, dropped the oven fork, and walked over the body of a Mort. He picked its skeem up off the ground. Well, I hope the kid knows some other way to make a living besides healing. Midge, who had probably exhausted his supply of words and phrases, stopped swearing.

“Damn it.… Are we sticking around here for long?” snapped Bamut nervously.

He got there just before me. I wanted to ask the same thing.

“Don’t yell,” wheezed Whip, and he spat. “We’re leaving now.”

*   *   *

“No, did you see that! Did you?” Luk was choking on his own words from agitation. “Wow! What could blow a house to bits like that?”

“I don’t know.” Ga-Nor was dismally watching the dust settle.

Nabatorians were scurrying about on the far side of the river.

“I’d bet my eyeteeth that this is the work of the necromancer’s hands,” the guard continued. “Someone displeased him and so he went into a rage. All Sdisians are deranged, they rub shoulders with the dead, screw a toad! Oh, I just know the bastard’s not going to calm down. He’s going to go through the village, smashing everything in his path. He’ll even get to us eventually.”

The northerner stretched so strenuously that his joints cracked and, springing lightly to his feet, he began to pack their things into the bag.

“What are you doing?” asked the guard, taken aback.

“Can you really not see? The Nabatorians are running around like lice on a flaming head; there’s no way they’ll get us now. I’m not joking. If we leave quickly, the patrols won’t pay any attention to us. We’re leaving by the forest.”

“Sure, and we’ll turn into old men by the time we get through that thicket to Al’sgara,” Luk replied bleakly. He was not at all tempted by the impending journey. “Perhaps there is another way.”

“Of course there is. It’s right over there. Over the bridge and then to the Sdisian’s house for dinner. He’ll be glad to meet you,” said the Son of the Snow Leopard sarcastically. “Don’t think about what’s in store for us. If we’re lucky enough to break through, we can try to go out onto the main highway and continue our journey like normal people.”

Hearing the words “normal people” from the gloomy northerner with the overgrown ginger beard and the bedraggled clothes would have, at any other time, caused Luk to go into fits of laughter. But right now there was nothing to laugh about. Besides, he didn’t look any better than his comrade. He looked like a scarecrow. But to scare people instead of crows. A city guard would take them for beggars or highwaymen.

“All right, let’s do it your way,” said the guard, reaching for his axe.

“I’m glad we agree.” Ga-Nor grunted approvingly. “Just, you’re being too hasty. It’s too early to move yet. The archers won’t just let us go.”

“Where are they?”

“There’s two of them about a hundred yards from here. They’re coming toward the mill. Don’t look! They’ll see you. It’s still too soon.”

The soldier breathed a sigh of disappointment and rested his axe over his knees. He closed his eyes and tried to calm his furiously beating heart.

*   *   *

Tia was forced to pause in the middle of the inn’s staircase because just at that moment the raven called her. Her vision momentarily darkened, a greasy lump stuck in her throat, her ears began ringing, and her eyes were struck by a glaring light. The Damned needed several seconds to orient herself and to apprehend what she was seeing. The first moments of looking at the outside world through the bird’s eyes were always difficult.

She was hovering between earth and sky. To her left flashed the dark blue ribbon of the river, reflecting the bright sun and the dark wall of the forest. Tia sent a mental command and changed the direction of its flight. Farther away from the market gardens and outskirts, closer to the center. People were scurrying about below. She wasn’t very high up, so Typhoid could make out the Nabatorians clearly. A cart laden with firewood was slowly making its way down a dusty street. A foursome of cavalry flew by it at a full gallop.

“Well, where are you hiding?” whispered the Damned. “Show yourself.”

She had to trust that her luck would continue to accompany her. Typhoid again changed the direction of flight. She drifted toward the river, closer to the eastern part of Dog Green. The raven flew over a water mill, a bridge; it dashed by roofs, alleys, gardens, vegetable patches, and then she saw the gutted house and the people. Five armed men and a woman with a khilss.

She didn’t think the girl would be so young. To have such blazing potential at such an age! No, she did not resemble a Walker at all. Her strength was palpable, but there was no trace of the characteristic weaves of the Imperial mages. She had clearly not been taught in the Rainbow Valley
(the magical school of the Walkers is located in the Rainbow Valley)
. Through the raven, the Damned reached out to the bearer of the Gift, trying to surreptitiously test the extent of her powers. The fool, of course, wouldn’t be able to feel a thing; it was beyond the limits of her capabilities.

But then the woman turned her head sharply. Squinting for a moment, she looked at the bird and then pointed it out to a blond man standing next to her. Before Typhoid had the chance to lead her helper away, the man cast up his bow.

Her ears burned with a sharp pain, the world went dark, and the enraged Damned once again found herself in the inn.

*   *   *

Impaled by the arrow, the bird crashed to the street like a stone. I didn’t really know why Layen had made such a fuss about it, but I did what she asked without any unnecessary questions.

“Getting a little practice in?” asked Shen venomously.

I scowled at him. Sooner or later the kid would get what was coming to him. He’d come up against some nice man who’d be all too happy to cut out his tongue.

“No, he knocked it down for your supper,” Midge teased him.

“You eat it yourself!” snapped the healer.

“Shut your traps!” yelled Layen. The idiotic bickering was starting to irritate her. “Let’s make time!”

Just then the body of the raven dissolved into thin air, leaving behind only the arrow, which I quickly returned to my quiver. Midge exclaimed loudly at the strange disappearance of my trophy.

“The bird was his eyes.” My sun was trying to calm the hissing staff. “Now he knows where we are.”

“Can I give some advice?” Whip was looking at me questioningly.

I shrugged my shoulders. If he had something to say, let him say it.

“We need to get off the street. Right now any mutt can see us, and any minute now the Nabatorians will come and—”

As if in answer to his fears, four riders galloped out onto the street.

Before Bamut and I had the chance to aim, Layen leaped in front of us. The loathsome wail rang out again, and a magical concussion struck the soldiers. Until today I never would have thought that people, not to mention horses, had the ability to fly; it turned out they did, even if they couldn’t do it quite as well as most birds. I got the impression that an enormous club struck the group of riders and heaved them up into the sky as if they weighed less than flecks of dust. If any of them chanced to live through that blow, I didn’t envy them. Landing on the unforgiving earth isn’t really good for your health. I was ready to bet all the money Layen had in her pack that those lads wouldn’t be able to pick up their bones.

Midge, having seen what became of their enemies, once again began a catalog of all the curses he knew. For the third time that day. I didn’t know what his words conveyed more—fear or admiration. And then there was Whip, who tossed his head as if thunderstruck, and said approvingly, if far too loudly, “They flew beautifully, the bastards.”

“They sure know how when they want to,” Bamut added. Then he giggled nervously.

*   *   *

The bloodcurdling wail rang out so suddenly that Luk, who was not expecting anything of the kind, nearly jumped out of his own skin. It seemed to him that he was hearing the warbling of a kirlee
(a spirit, most commonly encountered in ancient ruins. According to popular belief, those who hear its song will soon die)
. The soldier pressed close to the window. Something black fell out of the sky on the opposite shore of the river and hit the ground with a dull, repulsive thud.

“Wow!” was all that Ga-Nor had to say.

The deformed, bloody thing had been a living man not all that long ago. Judging by the fragments of clothing, it was a Nabatorian soldier. Before the guard had a chance to say anything, the sky sent down yet another victim. A cart, loaded to the brim with sacks of flour, was hit by the terrible blow of a horse’s heavy body and was smashed to pieces. Flour dust whirled up into the air.

The people working at the mill darted away in all directions, shrieking in horror. The archers who were standing not far off, on the other hand, rushed to the site of the incident.

“Hide!” The tracker sprung back from their vantage point and the soldier followed his lead.

They listened in as the Nabatorians chattered loudly and fearfully.