Stalking Darkness (68 page)

Working their way into the woods without being seen by the sentries, they followed the road to the head of the cove.

“Be ready,” the wizard whispered. “It is nearly time.”

Something slipped coldly across Alec’s back beneath his tunic. The weird disturbances in the air were worse now, tenuous but too insistent to be denied.

Spectral forms, half-seen from the corner of the eye, brushed light as cobweb against his face, only to flit out of sight when he tried to look at them directly.

The soldiers’ torches flared green and spit off fragments of flame that skittered like rats around the edge of the pool before being sucked up into the column of ghostly mist that was forming over the roiling pool. Up and up it rose, thrusting a twisting grey pillar flecked with tongues of fire into the burnt sky. It stood over the pool for a long moment, spirit forms darting around and through it, then a single blue-white bolt of lightning forked down through its center with an apocalyptic roar, blasting the pool into an explosion, of steam and rock fragments.

Soldiers fell to their knees, covering their faces in terror. The ravens rose in a screaming cloud, adding their raw voices to the din. From the direction of the road came the frenzied screams of the horses tethered there, and the clatter of carts being dragged off as the panicked beasts bolted. The mist slowly rolled back, revealing a shattered, steaming hole where the pool had been.

With a shout of triumph, Irtuk Beshar climbed down into it and retrieved something from the water and rubble.

Straightening again, she raised a helmet in both hands with a screech of sheer triumph.

The bulging, peaked top and nasal of the helm were fashioned of dull iron but it was circled at the brow with a wide circlet of ruddy gold. This band was set around with eight dull blue stones and surmounted by a bristling crown formed from eight twisted black horns. A curtain of black mail hung down from the back of the Helm and skeletal, long-taloned hands served as the cheek guards.

Climbing out, she held it up before Mardus and launched into an invocation of some kind. Although Alec did not understand her language, he recognized two words: “Seriamaius” and “Vatharna.”

Alec drew the bowstring to his ear.

Before he could loose the shaft, however, shouting broke out in the forest to the south. All eyes turned to see the bright glow of fire above the tops of the trees in the direction of the camp.

Mardus drew his sword and shouted an order, sending half the guards off in the direction of the disturbance.

Still clutching the helm, Irtuk Beshar gabbled urgently at him. Time slowed to dreamlike unreality as Alec rose to his feet and took aim again at the dyrmagnos.

Ghostly forms imposed themselves between him and his target, swirling around him to buffet and natter but he ignored them, concentrating on his shot.

Shoot true, tali. “Aura Elustri malreil,” he whispered.

The black bow quivered like a live thing under his hand as he drew it, calling on every ounce of power the Radly possessed. When the nock was level with his ear he released it. The fletching nicked his cheek as it flew, carrying a drop of his blood away with it.

The arrow sped straight and true as any shaft he’d ever loosed, and made a sound like a sudden crack of summer thunder when it struck Irtuk Beshar in the chest just below her throat. The impact spun her like a broken doll. The Helm fell from her hands, tumbling back into the blasted pool.

“And now you, you bastard!” Alec yelled, taking aim at the startled Mardus. But an arrow buzzed by his head, spoiling the shot.

Another whined past and he dropped for cover as pandemonium broke out below. Still clutching his bow, he scrambled to the edge of the outcropping to see what was going on.

Arrows flew from all directions, but most found targets among the Plenimarans. By the wavering light of the fallen torches Alec could just make out a small group of archers on the high ground opposite where he lay. They were shooting down at the exposed men below. In the melee, he saw Seregil and Micum dashing down over the rocks with their swords drawn, closing in on the wounded dyrmagnos.

Mardus was nowhere to be seen, so Alec turned his attention to the soldiers, shooting two in rapid succession before he was momentarily blinded by a brilliant flash of light that flared among the prisoners.

As his vision cleared, he saw Thero standing over the smoking bodies of several dead soldiers, but apparently unaware of the armed man coming at his back.

The wounding of the dyrmagnos must have weakened her hold on the wizard, Alec thought. “Look out,” he whispered, sending a red-fletched shaft at the guard. The man fell and Thero was lost from sight as the other prisoners surged forward in rebellion or panic.

“Got her on the first try!” Seregil exclaimed under his breath, watching from the ledges above as Irtuk Beshar whirled suddenly, clutching at the shaft protruding from her chest. The Helm fell from her hands, tumbling back into the hole it came from.

Mardus dove after it.

Ignoring the sudden arrow storm that erupted around them, he and Micum left Nysander in the shelter of the rocks and charged down. Irtuk Beshar’s spells on the pool were already unraveling. Water surged back into the basin, washing corpses and entrails down into the hole, and sweeping the Helm out of reach as Mardus bent to grab it.

Praying to Sakor that Nysander was right about her powers being exhausted, Micum charged the wounded dyrmagnos. She saw him and raised one gnarled hand. He swung, severing the arm, then struck again, taking her between the neck and shoulder. Her body split under his blade like a dry gourd. She screamed curses at him as her head and remaining arm tumbled away from her torso.

Despite the warnings of Seregil and Nysander, Micum hesitated for an instant, transfixed with horror as the severed parts writhed on the ground at his feet. Then a hint of motion caught his eye and he turned in time to deflect Tildus’ sword.

Sakor’s smiling today, he told himself as he sidestepped another blow and caught the Plenimaran captain a solid blow to the neck.

Other marines leapt forward to avenge their captain’s death. Micum crippled two and killed a third.

A fourth pressed in on his left side but fell before Micum could strike at him, an arrow through his back. Micum scarcely had time to register that the fletching color was not Alec’s before more Plenimarans rushed at him. He doggedly stood his ground, aware of the clash of swords behind him but too closely pressed to look.

As hoped, the revolt of the prisoners, together with the mysterious fire at the encampment, had drawn off many of the soldiers. Micum made short work of the few who remained.

He was just looking around for Seregil when a searing bolt of pain shot through the back of his right thigh.

Staggering, he twisted around to find Irtuk Beshar clinging to him, eyes shining like a wildcat’s as she tore at his leg with nails and teeth. Too late he realized his mistake; she was whole again.

The lower portion of her gown had fallen away and Micum could see both the livid, uneven line of the joining and the splintered end of the arrow shaft still protruding between her shriveled husk. Her legs, black and withered as those of a burned corpse, kicked spasmodically as she tightened her grip and sank her teeth into his flesh. A deadly coldness spread slowly out from the wounds.

Micum hacked awkwardly at her. One withered leg flew off, then he managed the cleave her in half at the waist. Determined not to make the same error twice, he grabbed the lower torso by its remaining leg and flung it with all his strength into the sea, then kicked the other limb into the shadows beyond the torches.

But Irtuk Beshar was still horribly alive and clung on to him like a curse. The coldness of her bite spread up through Micum’s vitals, stopping his ears, darkening his vision, numbing his fingers. His sword fell from his hand and he tore clumsily at her. Dried bone collapsed beneath his fists, strips of dusty scalp pulled away like rotten cloth, but still Irtuk Beshar hung on, plunging her poison into his veins with the last of her strength.

Micum’s deadened leg folded under him and he felt her grip change as she slowly pulled herself up his body. He could hear Seregil shouting nearby.

Micum’s throat worked soundlessly, choked with the vengeful hate of the dyrmagnos.

Alec was down to the three white arrows when he saw Micum thrashing on the ground just above the pool. His belly went cold as he realized what the monstrous thing clinging to him must be. It was pointless to shoot from here; there was no way to hit the dyrmagnos without killing Micum at the same time. Gripping the arrow like a dagger, Alec bounded down over the rocks, praying he wasn’t already too late.

Looking back over her shoulder, Beka saw that Braknil’s decuria had succeeded in setting fire to the Plenimaran camp. At this signal, she and Rhylin’s decuria opened fire on the Plenimaran soldiers massed in the natural amphitheater below. From where they stood on the ledges, it was like shooting pigs in a sty.

They were not the first to fire, however. Even as she loosed arrow after arrow, Beka wondered how Braknil had gotten back here so quickly and what his group was doing on the opposite side of the cove.

One of them had managed to hit the sorceress before Beka could give the order for her group to fire. Whatever the case, the prisoners were breaking free below, just as she’d hoped.

“That’s got them moving,” she growled, turning to the others. “Come on, urgazhi, let’s leave them to it.” “Hold on, Lieutenant,” whispered Rhylin. “It looks to me like we’re not the only ones who were after them!”

The frantic prisoners were pushing their captors back toward the cliffs, but a smaller knot of fighting was concentrated near the water’s edge.

Torchlight glanced off steel in the shadows of the natural basin that lay in the embrace of the two ridges of high ground. General Mardus was nowhere in sight, but the Plenimaran’s sorceress was still alive and wrestling with a large swordsman.

Beka’s heart skipped a beat.

“It can’t be!” she gasped. Then Alec bolted into view from behind a jumble of rocks, splashing wildly through the shallow water toward the struggling pair with nothing but an arrow in his hand.

Dropping her bow, Beka began scrambling down the steep rock face. “What are you doing?” Rhylin cried, catching her by the wrist. Beka pulled free so violently that she nearly dragged the startled man over the edge. “My father’s down there!” she snapped over her shoulder as she plunged on. “Riders,” barked Rhylin behind her, “follow the lieutenant’s lead! Attack!”

Micum was still struggling weakly beneath the dyrmagnos when Alec reached him. Grasping Beshar by what was left of her hair, Alec plunged the arrow into her neck. The resulting blast knocked him over onto his back, ears ringing.

Releasing Micum with a wild screech, Irtuk Beshar dragged what remained of herself at Alec and locked a hand around his ankle.

“I’ll have you after all,” she rasped, pulling herself along his leg with both hands like some nightmare lizard.

Alec saw his own death in her eyes. In his haste to aid Micum, he’d left the last two white arrows behind with his bow.

“Aura Elustri!” he panted, struggling to wrest his sword from the scabbard pinned beneath his leg. Before he could shift it, another blade flashed down, sending the dyrmagnos’ head spinning into the surf.

Shaking off the clinging hands, Alec lurched to his feet and stared in disbelief as Beka Cavish hacked furiously at the flailing arms and trunk.

“Get away from it,” he warned. “You can’t kill it.”

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, backing away from the twitching remains.

“No time for that. Where’s Micum? Go see to him.”

Beka found her father lying motionless where he’d fallen, eyes shut as he fought for breath. Sweat ran down his face in rivulets, carving trails in the black strip painted across his eyes.

“Father, it is you!” Beka exclaimed, kneeling to inspect the terrible wound in his leg. The dyrmagnos had torn away skin and muscle in her frenzy, and the raw flesh was already going dangerously dark.

“Beka?” he gasped, opening his eyes. “Scatter the parts, scatter—it won’t die.”

“Alec’s doing that,” she assured him. She pulled off her gloves to take his hand and saw for the first time the strange designs that had somehow appeared on her palms. Her father’s hands bore the same device.

“First I find you here and now this,” she said, bewildered. “What in Sakor’s name is going on?”

Micum held his hand next to hers. “So you’re a Vanguard, too. Things have come together in a strange way, Beka. You don’t know the half of it.” He closed his eyes and drew a wheezing breath.

She pulled open his tunic and laid an ear to his chest. His heart was pounding too hard and his skin was too cold. Looking around for help, she saw Alec and Rhylin hurrying toward her, supporting another man between them. This thin one with his matted black hair and young beard looked vaguely familiar. He’d been wounded, too; the side of his face was bloody and he had a sword cut across his ribs. Nonetheless, his pale green eyes were sharp and alert as he sank down beside Micum.

“Help him, Thero. There must be something you can do,” Alec pleaded. “I’ve got to find Seregil! Has anyone seen him? Or Nysander?”

“I am here, dear boy,” a hollow voice replied from the shadowed rocks above them.