Child of the Sword, Book 1 of The Gods Within (37 page)

Morgin extended his hands, palms up. “You
have nothing to fear from me.”

The big fellow said, “Yer wearing a
halfman’s cloak.”

Morgin glanced down at his clothing, then
back at the peasants. “So I am. When I’m shivering in the cold of
the night I’m not too particular about the cloak I wear. I’m Morgin
et Elhiyne, and I’m no Kull. In fact I’ve killed a few halfmen
recently, and intend to kill a few more.” Brave words, Morgin
thought, and hoped he could live up to them.

The man and woman both dropped to their
knees, muttering, “Yer Wizardness.” The boy stood unmoving, his
mouth still wide open. The woman grabbed his sleeve and pulled him
down to his knees. She said, “Fergive us, Yer Wizardness. We be
thinking ye was a black rider. They be all abouts, ye know.”

Morgin said, “Stand up. And rest easy.”

The woman’s name was Gulk, the boy was Ikth,
and the man Ott. The woman did most of the talking for the three.
“We be fleeing the hordes from the north, hiding from the black
riders whenever we sees ‘em coming.”

“You’re from up north then?”

“Aye, yer wizardship. We be from
Yestmark.”

“Yestmark? Then you have news of the
battle?”

“Aye. It went ill. Twas a slaughter, it
was.”

“And Eglahan?” Morgin asked. “What of
him?”

“Only the
gods
know, yer wizardship.
Likely he be dead like all the rest.”

Morgin could not hide his
disappointment.

“Do ya be goin’ south, yer wizardship?”

Morgin shook his head. “No. I ride
north.”

“What fer? There be nothin’ but death up
there.”

Morgin learned from her that the crossing on
the Ulbb was called Gilguard’s Ford. She had no idea why. He also
obtained directions to Yestmark. “North of here the road forks, yer
wizardshipness. Now I never rid no horse before, but it forks ‘bout
a day’s walk from here. Take the left road, ‘nother day’s walkin’,
and yer there. Don’t know how long it’ll take yee ridin’.”

Ott walked with a limp, and grimaced
occasionally as if favoring some injury. When Morgin asked about
it, Ott showed him a nasty gash in his calf that was beginning to
fester. Gulk had treated it with a poultice of mud and leaves that
added to the problem more than helping. AnnaRail had made sure his
saddlebags carried a small amount of healing herbs. Morgin
retrieved some redthorn, deadly poisonous if not properly prepared.
He chewed the redthorn into a pulpy mass, careful not to swallow
any. He shaped the mass into a poultice, then cast the appropriate
spell to convert the poison into a healing potion. “Don’t try to
handle redthorn yourself,” he warned them as he pressed the
poultice into the wound. “You don’t have the magic to prevent it
from killing you.”

Morgin showed Gulk how to make a proper
poultice by boiling jagroot and thisk leaves, straining out the
pulp, and using it to cover the wound. “Leave the redthorn poultice
in for two days, then change to the jagroot and thisk leave
poultice.”

He showed Ikth how to find ginberries and
prepare them, then instructed them to clean Ott’s wound with the
ginberry syrup and change the poultice twice a day. He set some
snares so Gulk could catch rabbits for her pot, and in scouting
around for good cover for the snares, he chanced upon a place up
river from the ford where the Ulbb passed through a deep canyon.
But within the canyon the river was still too shallow to have cut
into the rock so deeply, so Morgin guessed the nature of the river
was far different at the height of the spring thaw.

He suddenly had an idea. He tore a long,
thin, green branch from a nearby willow, sat down on the bank of
the river and carefully fashioned the branch into two, twelve
pointed stars. Then he cut a lock of his own hair, and between the
two stars he tied eight strands of hair, with eight knots in each
strand. He then climbed carefully up the north side of the canyon,
and at the top of the canyon he sat down to call forth his
magic.

It was hard, for this was not a spell
composed by another and then taught to him. This was his own spell,
of his own composition; he had to sense the natural spirit of it to
bring it into the mortal world, and that came slowly. But
eventually the strands of hair connecting the two stars began to
lengthen and thicken. He worked the spell carefully, lest it
evaporate before it was complete, and when the strands were long
enough, he sealed the spell and finished it.

The strands had grown to the thickness of
heavy twine. He tied a rock in them close to one star, then wedged
the other star into a crevice in the top of the canyon wall high
over the river. Then holding onto the strands he began spinning the
rock-weighted star over his head. He spun it faster and faster,
until it was almost beyond his strength to hold onto it, and then
he released it toward the other canyon wall. It arced out over the
canyon and just barely made it to the other side.

He followed the river back down to
Gilguard’s Ford, crossed the river, then climbed back up stream to
the top of the south canyon wall. There, he untied the rock from
the strands and wedged the other star into a crevice there. And
again he called upon his magic.

It seemed to take forever, but slowly the
eight strands that now crossed the canyon began to glow and thin
out, as if flattened and spread like dough beneath a baker’s
rolling pin. They flattened until they filled the canyon from wall
to wall and top to bottom, and grew so thin they became fully
transparent. He extended them down until they touched the water and
began to dam the river. But he did not extend them fully down to
the river bed itself, so some water still spilled beneath the veil
he had created, though slowly the water was backing up behind it.
This was a spell that needed time to develop, to come to
fruition.

He returned to Gilguard’s Ford, found
Mortiss waiting for him. Under the watchful eyes of the three
peasants he repacked his saddle bags. As he walked Mortiss across
Gilguard’s Ford, he heard Ikth call, “Ride with the
gods
,
Lard Morgin.”

North of the Ulbb Morgin encountered more
refugees fleeing the battle of Yestmark, mostly peasants and
farmers. Many were on foot, but often an entire family had trundled
its belongings into a two-wheeled cart pulled by a donkey or an ox,
or sometimes a man or boy. Shortly before sunset he began to
encounter soldiers, many of them wounded, jamming the road in
places and making it difficult to move against the flow of
refugees.

The first soldiers he came upon were a pair,
one with his arm in a sling and the other hobbling on a makeshift
crutch. “How went the battle?” Morgin asked.

He with his arm in a sling looked up, and
Morgin was struck by the desolation in his eyes. “It was a
slaughter. We had twelve hundred men. I doubts there be two hundred
left alive.”

“What of Eglahan?”

The old soldier shrugged. “Probably dead
like all the rest.”

Morgin rode on. Before the sun set he
questioned more soldiers. All told the same story. One who was
older, a sergeant-of-men and probably quite reliable, gave the bad
news that he had seen Eglahan go down.

Once the sun set the refugees on the road
thinned out. Morgin was able to travel much faster and reached the
fork in the road near midnight, and as Gulk had instructed he took
the left road. Throughout the night he noticed small fires in the
forest on both sides of the road: refugees unwilling or unable to
travel in the dark. But by sunrise he’d reached a point where the
road and the surrounding forest were deserted.

He moved with extreme caution, riding in the
shadows at the edge of the road and making constant use of his
shadowmagic. And then shortly after midday he heard a soft rumble
that grew quickly into the thunder of hooves on the road. He froze,
held Mortiss still and reinforced his shadowmagic. Moments later a
mixed patrol of Kulls and Decouix regulars rode past at full
gallop.

He waited until they were out of sight, then
dismounted. He walked now in front of Mortiss and stayed close to
the edge of the forest. The sky was clear, the sun bright, and the
shadows dark and deep. He walked for another two hours that way,
creeping slowly and carefully, freezing into stillness and
concentrating on his shadowmagic whenever a Decouix patrol passed
by.

He heard it long before his conscious mind
recognized it as sound. At first it was a faint, soft rumble, like
the roar of a distant water fall, but as he walked farther it grew
into a din that could no longer be ignored. He led Mortiss a good
distance into the forest and tethered her there.

Alone now, he stayed in the wood as he
traveled parallel to the road. The going was slower there, but
safer. He kept low, followed the smaller game trails rather than
the larger, and never relaxed his shadowmagic for so much as an
instant.

The wood ended abruptly, and the nearby road
opened out onto a wide, flat plain. And there, well separated from
the edge of the forest, lay the source of the noise that pounded
now at Morgin’s ears: the camp of the Decouix army.

It was a sprawl that stretched for as far as
the eye could see, twelve thousand strong with perhaps three
thousand horses. Morgin didn’t try to count them but he estimated
there were a thousand wagons, plus smiths, cooks, wives, children,
and the general gamut of camp followers. He stayed within the edge
of the forest, moving about and scouting the lay of the camp. He
paid close attention to the perimeter, the spacing of the guards,
and how they moved. He took careful note of the location of an
elaborate cluster of pavilion-like tents near the center of the
camp, and especially that which bore the banner of Illalla, Lord of
the Greater Clans, King of the third tribe of the Shahot, ruler of
the White Clan, foremost of the Greater Council.

When Morgin was satisfied he knew the lay of
the camp, he slipped back into the forest to await darkness and the
time of shadow.

“It wasss a grand victory, my lord,” the
winged snake hissed from its pedestal in the corner of the
tent.

“It was not,” the High Lord snarled. His
campaign was far behind schedule and his temper was short this
night. “It was a rout, nothing more, nothing less. We exterminated
some vermin. It was not grand and it was hardly a victory. The real
victory will come when I crush that bitch Olivia and her cursed
offspring. And cease your condescending flattery, Bayellgae. I’m
not in the mood.”

“Ssssss!” the snake demon said angrily. It
flapped its tiny wings and extended its body.

Illalla turned upon the demon and pointed a
finger toward his familiar. “Don’t hiss at me, snake. You seem to
forget yourself now and then. Must we teach you again who here is
master?”

“No, massster. Pleassse.” Chastened, the
snake averted its eyes.

“Then when you’re in the company of your
betters, snake, act like it.”

“Yesss, massster. Bayellgae begsss
forgivenessss.”

“If Bayellgae wishes forgiveness, it should
beg for it at my feet.”

The snake knew better than to speak. It
slithered down its pedestal and across the floor. It curled up and
laid its head submissively at the tip of the High Lord’s slipper.
“Forgive me, massster.”

“Back to your perch,” the wizard
snarled.

The snake sprang into the air, its tiny
wings buzzing like a bumblebee.

“Now,” Illalla said. “Tell me of the
camp.”

As the snake spoke, its head and body wove
habitually from side to side. “Asss you commanded, my lord, I flew
about the camp. The men have finissshed celebrating. Sssince you
reduced their ration of ale thisss day, they are sssober.”

“Will they be ready to travel?”

“Yesss, your grace. If you command it.”

“I do. I’ll issue orders to my captains to
ready to march at dawn.”

“Yesss, my lord.”

“What of Eglahan, snake? Have you found his
body?”

“No, my lord. There are ssso many bodiesss
to sssearch. It wasss ssso dissstracting.”

“And you dallied, no doubt.”

“Forgive me, my lord. I cannot help myssself
when there isss ssso much delightful death about.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Illalla dismissed it
all with a wave of his hand. “Eglahan is of no import. Dead or
alive he can no longer hurt me. But what about that bunch of
Elhiyne rabble? What have you found out about them, my prescient
little beast?”

“They are going to attack usss tomorrow,
massster, though they don’t know it yet. They believe we don’t know
they’re here, ssso they think they will sssurprissse usss, then
disssappear quickly into the foressst.”

Illalla threw his head back and laughed. “So
they think they’ll surprise us. Well we’ll have to prepare a little
trap for them, eh? And we’ll see who surprises who. By the way. Has
there been any word of that fool son of mine?”

“Only that the Elhiynesss have retaken their
cassstle and Valssso wasss neither captured nor killed.”

“Then he still lives?”

“Perhapsss, my lord. He isss resssourceful
and may yet—” The snake suddenly stopped its weaving undulations.
Agitated by something, it spit and hissed and fluttered
angrily.

Illalla knew the serpent’s senses were
sharper than his own. “What is it, Bayellgae?” he demanded.

“We are being obssserved, my lord.”

Morgin tensed. He stood hidden within the
shadows immediately outside Illalla’s tent. The night and its
shadows were his only protection.

“A spy?”

“Yesss, my lord, a ssspy.”

“Then find it, snake, and kill it.”

Morgin ran, another shadow among many in the
moonlight, but behind him he heard the buzzing of tiny wings and
the hiss of the deadly little snake. In desperation he stepped into
a shadow and froze, holding his breath, quenching his own magic
ruthlessly so that the little monster could not sense it.