The Silver Mage (50 page)

The cavalry line broke. Horses fled beyond control. Riders broke ranks and shamelessly deserted, racing back toward the west. The Mountain men swung and hacked. Blades flashed up bloody in the sunlight as the remaining Horsekin turned their mounts and ran. One remnant in utter confusion broke for the hill that separated the camp from the battle.

Laz pulled himself out of trance and screamed, “They’re coming our way!” A wave of lathered horses and yelling Horsekin broke over the crest of the hill and started down just as the axemen left on guard rushed forward to form a line twixt Horsekin and camp. At the sight of them, most of the Horsekin turned their horses to either side and rode back up to the crest and over. From the screaming and war cries drifting on the summer air, Laz could guess that they’d met the dwarves and their wyrd on the way down.

One of the archers, however, decided on revenge. He pulled up his horse on the crest and began loosing arrows into the camp below. Servants screamed and dodged. The axemen trotted forward and up the hill, climbing as quick and steady as only the Mountain Folk can climb. The archer turned his horse and fled with his companions.

The danger-omen left Laz as suddenly as it had appeared the night before. He turned around to speak to Faharn and saw his apprentice slumped over a dwarven cart, hands clasped around the shaft of an arrow protruding from his chest. Blood flowed from between his fingers. Laz swore with every foul oath he knew as he caught Faharn by the shoulders and gently laid him down on the ground.

Laz dropped to his knees beside Faharn and bent over his body. A quick glance showed him that pulling the arrow free would only make the wound worse. Faharn still breathed, but each breath wheezed and rattled in his chest. His mouth opened in a gasp. A thick red bubble burst on his lips.
Nothing to be done here,
Laz thought. He slipped into trance and summoned his body of light in one smooth motion of his mind. This time the man-shape appeared, as robust as ever. Laz transferred his consciousness into it and followed Faharn into what his apprentice would see as the Deathworld.

Faharn’s etheric double, pale and stretched thin in the bright blue glow, hovered a long way above his body. The silver cord had dwindled to a mere thread, and as Laz rose up, he saw the thread snap. Faharn’s utter bewilderment clung around him in a thick gray mist.

“Faharn!” Laz thought to him. “I’m here!”

The etheric double swooped down to meet him, but Laz could hear no thought, only feel Faharn’s wordless terror. His own stab of guilt made him tremble.
I should have told him, I should have told him the truth earlier.
He forced his mind steady.

“You’re dead.” Laz projected as much cold calm as he could muster. “You’re dead, but it’s not the end. You’re going to go on and live again. I’ll lead you.”

Faharn held out pale blue hands.

“You can’t touch anything here,” Laz thought to him. “You’re going to a new life. Follow me!”

His years of unthinking trust brought Faharn rewards now. Whenever Laz glanced back, he saw Faharn’s glowing blue form following him. Laz rose to the upper levels of the etheric, then opened a gate to the astral world beyond. As he swooped through, Faharn came after. They soared upward through the indigo tunnel, studded with stars and images, echoing with ghostly voices, past the twisting, churning forms projected from both their memories, until at last they burst out into the pale lavender meadows of Death. Ahead, beyond the field of white poppies, lay the white river, where water that never flowed on earth nor reached an earthly sea slid past without a ripple or a sound.

“Cross over!” Laz said. “Cross over to a new life!”

Yet Faharn lingered, hovering close to him. When Laz let his own form drift toward the river, Faharn came after. Close to the bank a mist was rising, reaching toward them with pale wisps like hands. Laz glanced down and saw his own silver cord stretching out thin.

“Faharn, go to the river.” He made his thought-voice as gentle as he could. “Trust me. Life awaits you.”

With a bob of its head the etheric double obeyed. The misty hands caught the image of Faharn’s hands and pulled him to the river’s edge. A vast silver wave rose up and enveloped him, washing him safely to the farther bank. In the rising mist Laz could see no more.

Laz turned his consciousness to his body, left far below. With a yank, the silver cord thickened and hauled him back to the gate. He plunged through. Down he swept through the indigo tunnel, down and down, until with a gasp and a wave of pain, he fell back into his flesh.

Aching and gasping for breath, Laz opened his eyes. He found himself still crouched over Faharn’s body, soaked with darkening blood.

“Here, here, lad,” a familiar voice said. “There’s naught to be done for him. Come away now.”

Laz looked up to see Garin standing nearby, his eyes all sad sympathy.

“True enough,” Laz said. “I was just saying a prayer or two for the dead. It’s our custom, you see, among the Gel da’Thae.”

“Ah, well and good, then.”

Laz stood up and turned away from the dead thing that had once been his friend. He would miss Faharn, he realized, another person he’d not appreciated until it was too late.
Ye gods!
he thought.
That’s a nasty thread to have woven through your life!
When he glanced around him, he saw Brel nearby, barking commands as his men restored order in the disrupted camp.

“We’ll bury him with our dead,” Garin said. “Back in Lin Serr.”

“My thanks, Envoy. That’s an honor indeed.”

Garin bowed to him.

“It’s time for the truth, Envoy,” Laz continued. “Even though remaining with your people would be another honor, I have a grave reason to leave you. The mage Dallandra charged me with the task of retrieving a book from the Boars. I’ve done that, and now I’m supposed to take it to Haen Marn to wait for her there.”

“Never would I stand in your way if Dallandra’s behind this,” Garin said, “but if you’ll come to Lin Serr, we can give you an escort to the island.”

“That’s truly generous, but I’d best take my leave of you. I can get to Haen Marn faster on my own.”

“What?” Garin said. “You’ll be in danger the entire way, a lone horseman out in wild country.”

“I’ll be leaving our horses with you.”

“What? But—”

Brel turned and shouted something in Dwarvish that made Garin wince. Laz could guess that it was some variant of “He can fly, you idiot,” since both the warleader and the envoy knew about his raven form.

“You know your own mind best, Laz,” Garin said in Deverrian. “We can give you some food for the trip, at least.”

“That would be a blessing, and I thank you. I’ve been an outlaw for years, you know. I’m good at slipping through wild country unseen.”

“Very well.” Yet Garin hesitated.

What would he do,
Laz wondered,
if I told him the truth? Or is that what Brel shouted at him?

“If you’re certain you’ll fare well?” Garin said at last.

“Certain I am, good Envoy! And my thanks for your aid.”

With a sack full of supplies, Laz left the dwarves as they began to wrap up the bodies to take home to Lin Serr. He walked to the top of the hillock, looked around, and saw a ravine leading off to the east. He followed it, climbing over boulders, avoiding the tangled brush and thorny shrubs as best he could, until he could be sure that he was out of sight of the Mountain Folk. He took off his clothes, winced at his shirt, stained with Faharn’s blood, and stowed them in the sack along with the dragon book. He tied it securely with his belt and laid it on top of one of the largest boulders.

With a cry, Laz transformed into the raven. He shook his wings, picked up his sack, and flew. He circled the camp once in farewell, then headed off for Haen Marn. As he gained height, he was wondering if the silver wyrm would forgive him for whatever ancient fault it was that lay between them, now that he’d retrieved the book. He hoped so, because he feared that even in human form, Rori would make an enemy that no man would want ranged against him.

A
fter some days of searching, Rori had found the mob of Horsekin emigrants, with their wagons, herds of cattle, horses, and slaves, a good distance away from the ruined fortress. Where the Northlands plateau began to rise into the foothills of the Western Mountains, they’d made a fortified camp. Although the fortifications only amounted to dirt heaped up along ditches, they troubled him, implying as they did that the emigrants were planning on spending some days behind them. He circled overhead and made a rough count of the soldiers scattered here and there in the camp—less than half as many as he’d seen before, another troubling detail.

The camp lay on the banks of another river, this one flowing south. Perhaps the leaders of this Horsekin horde were planning on following it to some goal and had sent some of their armed riders out as scouts. To test this assumption, he followed its course, but he’d not traveled more than a few hours when he found another camp, this one laid out with military precision and swollen with soldiers, far more than he’d seen all summer long, as many as two thousand by his rough estimate. As he circled above, he realized that the terrain around the camp looked familiar. In the hills to the west, not far away at all, lay his and Arzosah’s summer lair.

Surely the Horsekin had no idea that the dragon caves lay so close. Would they attack the great wyrms—of course not! Cerr Cawnen! The name burst into his consciousness. This river ran through canyons until it reached the flatlands again, then meandered down to the marshes around Cerr Cawnen, a town that the Horsekin had coveted before. When the war at Cengarn had left them too weak to take it, they had tried to win its citizens over to a false alliance—but failed.

Now the Horsekin had grown strong again. Little, however, had changed for the Rhiddaer since that day forty years earlier. Although the town was beautifully fortified, it could muster at the utmost nine hundred members of an ill trained and ill-armed militia in its defense. Rori knew that if the huge army below him could breach the walls, take even a single gate, they would slaughter every man in it and enslave the women and children. Once the town was theirs, getting them out of it again would likely be impossible with the force that Dar and Voran could muster.

By then, the summer twilight was gathering in the sky. Rori banked a wing and headed south, flying until the night darkness made it too difficult for him to follow the landmarks below. He settled among rocks in the hills to rest, but with the first silver gleam of dawn he launched himself into the air again and flew onward. As he traveled, he made a rough estimate of distances. An army the size of the Horsekin threat would move slowly over this hill country. The marshy land north of Cerr Cawnen would slow them down as well. It would take them some days—perhaps even a fortnight if dragons should continually disrupt their line of march—to reach their prey.

It took Rori, however, less than a day to fly wearily into the town. Up on the central island of Citadel stood the ruins of an ancient temple, half-hidden by trees on a slope just down from the public plaza. Rori circled the plaza once and roared out Niffa’s name as he did so, over and over until one of the terrified townspeople below finally understood him.

“I’ll be fetching her!” the man called up to him. “Please eat not our folk!”

“I’d never do such a thing,” Rori called back. “I’ll lair at the temple.”

The fellow ran off, and Rori landed to rest and wait.

“
I
be mourning Aethel as deeply as he,” Cotzi said, “but truly, Niffa, I do try to get myself up and about, like. Your brother, he be wallowing in grief, I think me.”

“I do agree at least in part,” Niffa said. “Well, let me go see if talk might help him.”

Cotzi smiled in thanks. She’d turned into a stout gray-haired matron, her face graved with deep lines, but still she reminded Niffa of Demet, Cotzi’s brother and her own long-dead husband. The family resemblance among the weavers had always run strong.
Aethel did look like them, too,
she thought.
Ai! Our poor lad!