Child of the Sword, Book 1 of The Gods Within (49 page)

He thought carefully about the dream, trying
to remember what had terrified him so there at the end, wondering
why he had chosen to dream about the Elhiyne lad. Perhaps it was
only because the fellow was near the forefront of everyone’s
thoughts these days, what with the stories that were filtering down
out of the mountains of the man and his shadows.

Wylow was alone in bed; Carmet had already
arisen and was about somewhere. Light streaming through a shuttered
window told him it was well past dawn. He chided himself for
sleeping so late, crawled out of bed, threw on a heavy, old robe,
and went seeking a bite to eat.

One of the kitchen maids threw together a
hearty breakfast for him. She was a pretty thing, and Wylow watched
the back of her skirt closely as she worked, thinking he might bed
her some time if Carmet didn’t object. He was tearing into a piece
of cold meat, and thanking the
gods
that his steward hadn’t
yet found him to heap the day’s work upon him, when the Elhiyne lad
stepped out of a shadow and sat down at the table opposite him.

Wylow growled past a mouth full of food,
“What the netherhell are you doing here?”

The lad smiled pleasantly, but his words
were ominous, “We have a bargain, Lord Wylow, and a bargain made in
a dream is still a bargain.” And then the lad’s smile began to
shift and change into a mask of evil, and strange shadowy shapes
coalesced out of the shadows of the room, smothering him, pulling
at his soul, devouring his spirit . . .

~~~

Wylow shot awake and cried out, sat up in bed
breathing heavily with his heart racing. It took some seconds to
calm himself, and only then did he realize it had all been only a
dream, a dream within a dream. He looked at the foot of the bed for
reassurance, was pleased to see that the covers were not
mud-stained by the lad’s boots. It was barely dawn, though Carmet
was already up and about somewhere.

Wylow could hear a commotion out in the
castle yard, and another in the hall outside his bedchamber. There
followed a discrete knock at the door. “Enter,” Wylow growled.

The door swung open and his chief steward
stepped hastily into the room. He bowed deeply. “My lord.”

“What do you want?”

“Your liegemen, my lord. They began arriving
in small groups only moments ago, all mounted and girded for war.
And the head of each household bears the same story—that a
messenger in the form of a shadow came to him in the night and told
him to assemble his armsmen and ride with all haste to Inetka.”

“How many?”

“I can only guess, my lord, but I would
estimate somewhere in the neighborhood of four hundred.”

Wylow nodded, realizing he had no choice but
to accept the situation. “Assemble my gear. Call out all the
armsmen in the castle, and tell the Lady Carmet we’re riding to
war.”

The steward bowed deeply. “The Lady Carmet
has already assembled your gear and called out your armsmen. She
says a shadow visited her also.”

~~~

Morgin danced cautiously from one moon-shadow
to the next. He moved slowly, with infinite care, sword in hand,
ready to be discovered and killed at any moment. As he stepped to
the next shadow he stumbled over something, caught the branch of a
nearby tree to keep from falling, then froze into stillness like
that of the night air.

He waited for an outcry, his heart pounding
with fear, knowing that a Decouix sentry must surely have heard his
fumbling. But luck was with him, for the silence about him remained
unbroken.

He looked down at the crumpled heap he’d
stumbled into. It was another dead warrior, though whether Decouix
or Elhiyne he could not tell. The man had been partially stripped
by camp followers, and what little clothing remained was
insufficient to identify his clan. The moonlit ground of Sa’umbra
was littered by many such corpses.

Without warning the power of the sword
surged within him. He looked at his hands with some idea of what to
expect: they glowed softly in the dark. He concentrated on his
shadowmagic, trying to obscure the eerie light that emanated from
his skin, and as a shadow swirled about his hand the glow there
diminished. It was joined by others, and soon he was enveloped in a
never-ending dance of ghostly half-images that flittered from head
to foot.

The silence of the night was broken suddenly
by the sound of many horses. They came as a thunder in the
distance, approaching quickly, building to a crescendo as a Decouix
patrol neared, then dying slowly as they rode on. The sound took
forever to disappear on the night air, but when it was well and
gone Morgin moved on, dancing among the shadows that had become so
much a part of him, dancing on a landscape of darkness and
moonlight and death.

The battle at Sa’umbra had been raging for
four days now. Eglahan, with his four hundred men and horses, had
arrived two days before. His scouts had found a place to camp
hidden well within the forest far down from the gap, and he was
waiting now for Morgin and Wylow. Wylow had not shown yet. During
the intervening days and nights Morgin had spent his time scouting
out the battle, and had chosen to avoid contact with everyone.

It was well past midnight, and Morgin longed
for a place to stop and rest, but it was slow work travelling on
foot, lurking from shadow to shadow. He was forever in danger of
discovery, and now that he knew the lay of the pass and had the
information he sought, the danger was even greater, for he had a
tendency to move hastily, to rush to be gone from the horror that
lay about him. But one poorly chosen step would be enough to cost
him his life.

Whenever possible he had stayed within the
confines of Eglahan’s camp, hidden within a shadow and unable to
show himself, but hungry for human companionship nevertheless. And
this night, wrapped within his shadows, he slipped past Eglahan’s
sentries easily. There was a commotion at the center of camp, for
Wylow and his men had arrived and a large council of war was in
progress.

Eglahan sat near a small fire with Annen and
his lieutenants at his side. Opposite them sat Wylow, SandoFall,
Edtoall, and Wylow’s sons and lieutenants. To one side sat
Tulellcoe and France and the Balenda. France, not being a clansman,
and also by natural inclination, sat on a rock a short distance
back from the rest, so Morgin sat down in a shadow beside him.

France neither looked nor turned Morgin’s
way, but he whispered softly, “Beware, lad. There’s bad blood and
swollen pride here.”

Morgin nodded, then realized the swordsman
could not have seen the gesture. And he wondered how France had
known he was there at all.

It was obvious the council of war had been
going on for some time now. Annen and Edtoall were hot into an
argument. Wylow looked ready to pick a fight with someone, and to
that end he stared unhappily at Eglahan. Tulellcoe was silent,
apparently unwilling to join in the clash of wills, while the
dispute between Annen and Edtoall was growing hot and angry, and as
the two men stood facing one another over the fire, they held the
joint focus of the council. From what little Morgin had seen of
interclan councils, this was typical.

They were arguing over something to do with
tactics, and all but Eglahan appeared ready to join the dispute.
Morgin watched him hold his silence with a visible effort,
obviously frustrated at his inability to control the situation. But
as the heat of the argument grew there came a moment when Eglahan
could contain himself no longer. He raised his right hand to demand
their attention; it was stiff and flat like the steel blade of a
knife. “Enough,” he bellowed. “We should be working together, not
fighting among ourselves.”

There was some grumbling, but it stilled as
Annen and Edtoall reluctantly sat down, though the look that Wylow
gave Eglahan bode ill for any cooperation between the two
leaders.

“Where’s the damn Elhiyne?” Wylow growled.
“ShadowLord or no, we have a bargain.”

Eglahan shrugged. “I believe he’ll show
up.”

“And will he keep his end of the
bargain.”

Again Eglahan shrugged. “I hope so. I
believe so.”

Wylow spoke loudly. “If he doesn’t, we’re
gone from here. But if he does, I still say we wait until the final
battle, then hit Illalla from behind and destroy his wagons and
supplies. He’ll not be expecting that.”

Annen yelled hotly, “And I say we attack
now. We can force him to split his troops and form a battle line at
his rear.”

“What will that buy us?” Edtoall demanded.
“Illalla has enough men to defend his rear and still take the
gap.”

“Exactly,” Wylow said flatly. “And that is
why my men and I will wait until the main battle. We will attack
then, and only then, and destroy Illalla’s supplies.”

Eglahan shook his head sadly. “And by that
time the Elhiynes will be exhausted. Most will be dead and the main
battle will be a rout.”

“It seems to me,” Annen said to no one in
particular, “that the Inetkas seek to save themselves by destroying
the Decouix supplies. With that done Illalla cannot carry his
campaign to Inetka, though of course it will be too late for
Elhiyne.”

Wylow spoke in a snarl. “What are you
implying, Elhiyne?”

Annen feigned simple ignorance. “Oh nothing
at all, Inetka. Only that you could then hide safely behind your
women and your castle walls with no—”

Edtoall leapt up, drew his sword and
screamed, “Elhiyne lies!”

Annen jumped to face him. “Inetka coward!”
he yelled.

A young Inetka cursed and lunged at Annen,
but Annen sidestepped quickly and clubbed him in the face with the
hilt of his sword. As the young Inetka went down, Edtoall leapt
past him, landed squarely before Annen, struck down hard with his
sword. Annen deflected it, but the sound of the two blades crashing
together seemed to be a signal to the entire camp, and suddenly
hundreds of angry blades leapt clear of their sheaths with an
ominous scrape of metal against metal.

Morgin wanted to run, to get out of the way
and let the fools kill each other. He wanted to disappear into the
forest, to return to his original idea of assassinating Illalla in
the night, but his arms and legs were no longer his to command. He
remained seated on the ground and reached for his own sword, but he
slid it only a few inches from the sheath, far enough for him to
touch the steel of the blade with the flesh of his hand. It stung
his flesh like a hot brand with a power that was foreign and evil,
but he endured the pain and called upon the power of the blade, let
that power flood through his soul and used it to form a shadow
larger and darker and deeper than any he had ever attempted before.
He brought the shadow down over the entire camp, the light of the
moon died and the glow of the campfires was quenched, throwing
everything into a deep blackness. A cold, deadly wind whistled
through the camp; it cut to the marrow and chilled men’s spines to
the quick. There were cries of terror and loathing, and all
fighting ended in that instant.

Morgin held the shadow in place for a long
moment and let the nether wind blow, then released his grip on the
blade and the wind died, leaving behind a silent and deadly calm.
The enormous shadow cleared from the camp to reveal almost everyone
standing with sword in hand, though most were looking over their
shoulders and no one seemed inclined to do any fighting.

Eglahan had not drawn his sword, and he
shouted angrily, “Stop this. Sheath your weapons now.”

Everyone obeyed slowly, and all but Annen
returned to their seats. Annen remained standing near the fire and
shouted, “I’ve had enough of this. Where are you ShadowLord? Show
yourself, or are you too much of a coward?”

Morgin hesitated, but France whispered,
“You’ve got to now, lad. You brought us all here, now you owe it to
us to join us . . . openly.”

Morgin stood carefully, still wrapped within
a shadow. He picked a shadow that was moving toward Annen, followed
it into the light of the fire, but hesitated at the last moment,
for the shadows about him whispered to him not to leave the safety
of shadow.

“Well, ShadowLord,” Annen demanded. “If you
actually exist, and I have yet to see any proof that you’re
anything but a myth, show yourself to me now. I’m waiting—”

Morgin, standing only inches from Annen’s
face, quenched his shadowmagic without warning. Annen gasped,
started, stepped back into the fire, stumbled over the coals and
raised a shower of sparks and smoke. He recovered quickly, stood up
straight and faced Morgin squarely. Morgin could hear murmurs
throughout the camp.

Morgin looked at Eglahan, then Wylow, and
hoping to avoid the issue of his end of the bargain, he said
simply, “I’ve scouted the gap quite extensively. Is there anything
you’d like to know?”

“Yes,” Wylow growled. “What in netherhell am
I doing here?”

Someone demanded, “What did you see out
there?”

Morgin thought of the moonlit landscape he’d
just crossed, and the human debris that littered it with quiet and
untimely death. “Death,” Morgin said. “Death everywhere.”

“How far did you go?” someone else
asked.

“How has the battle gone?”

“Where is the battle line now?”

“Silence,” Eglahan bellowed. “One question
at a time.” He looked at Morgin anxiously. “Tell us what you
can.”

Morgin nodded and spoke slowly. “This side
of the gap is narrow, treacherous in spots, and the Elhiynes have
used that to advantage. They’ve kept the Decouixs bunched so that
Illalla can’t make use of his numerical superiority. It appears to
have been a long, drawn out battle of attrition. Illalla is
winning, but not with the speed I’m sure he had anticipated.”

Eglahan asked, “How much longer can your
father’s men hold?”