The web of wizardry (42 page)

Gordyan and the warriors knew no tempering of sanity, lusting for a revenge that would not be turned aside. Danaer screamed the same defiance and slashed limbs and bodies and wanted still more Markuand blood to spill, his battle thirst unslaked. He would thrust through every hated white tunic, slay every one of the enemy.

Death to the Markuand—and most especially to their wizard and his treacherous allies in sorcery.

They had descended halfway down the slope, more and more forming a solid line with the army, two branches of a river joining, drowning the Markuand between them. The Destre fell on the Markuand's flanks while Branra assaulted them frontally.

They had held! They had swept Yeniir clean of the invaders! Shaartre struggled through the melee to Danaer, calling, "Danaer, youngling! What is this? Never have I seen Destre so possessed. Danaer? Do you not know me, old friend?"

The full import of the last few minutes struck Danaer and he slumped in the saddle, too stunned to reply at once. Gordyan too was by his side. The big man's face was still grief-tortured and he wiped at his eyes. Then he stared over Danaer's shoulder. Branra too was spurring to join this little gathering, but it was not Branraediir's approach which disturbed Gordyan.

An elite Destre guard lanced down Markuand blocking their path, clearing the way for the Siirn Rena. Gordt te Raa's magnificent roan was lathered and staggering from the punishment he had given it, an unheard-of thing for a Destre. "Word was brought . . ." he began, then saw what he had feared he would in Gordyan's expression. The Destre leader's powerful hands knotted reins and his mount's mane as he struggled to contain his anguish.

"Lasiimte ..." Gordyan could say no more.

Though the battle din surrounded them, they seemed to be held in a profound silence for a long moment. Gordt te Raa jerked his head several times to one side and then the other, his jaw clenched. He was Rena, and he must ever be the strongest of all his people.

"Kant, prodra Argan," he murmured at last, his voice shaking only a trifle, his sorrow nearly mastered now.

Branra obviously felt he should offer some condolence. He grasped what had happened and thought to speak on behalf of the Royal Commander and all those of The Interior who were Gordt te Raa's allies. "Can we help in any way, Sovereign?" he asked.

"Give the Siirn a moment, my lord," Danaer advised the nobleman.

"Call him Rena!" Since he and Gordyan had become hyidu, his friend had not spoken with such anger to him. Yet Danaer knew what drove Gordyan, taking no hurt.

He shook his head sadly. "You know I cannot. The prophecy is not yet fulfilled, when Andaru shall come to be and the Azsed Rena shall be the Rena Azsed." Gordt te Raa stared at him, his intelligent eyes glistening. Even in his grief, he understood.

Ashamed of his outburst, Gordyan gripped Danaer's arm in apology and said, "Ai! Forgive me. Rena, it is so. Her . . . her sacrifice will buy us Andaru. A holy vision proclaims it."

It was the only consolation that would have meant anything to the leader of the Destre-Y. Gordt te Raa nodded curtly, drawing his mantle across his breast, preparing to leave. There was no blood fever in his face, but a cold dedication, tinged with deep mourning. "So Argan wills. And many more will die, to accompany her to Keth's gates—an army of Markuand I myself will slay."

With that, he turned and rode back into the melee, his guards clearing the way around him, all of them l-ancing down the enemy ruthlessly and methodically as they went.

"I do not know if I can accept Andaru at this awful price," Gordyan said. "I have failed him, and Lasiirnte ..."

Danaer feared his friend was about to make some reckless vow in his grief, some suicidal oath to atone for a thing that had been foredoomed. He started to speak and say again that the goddess would not be denied.

Then he reeled in the saddle, grunting with shock, clutching his belly. Branra had drawn rein and begun to head back to his command, but now he paused, concerned. Shaartre leaned toward his comrade in arms, and Gordyan said, "What is it, hyidu?"

They thought aUke, that Danaer had been struck by the enemy. They feared to see blood flowing, ready to catch him if he fell.

But there was no wound, though Danaer felt indeed as if arrow or spear had pierced him—a weapon of raging fire. The dagger! Silver and obsidian burned where his hand lay and all along his middle, under the sheath. Flame moved from his fingers into his veins and bone.

And out of the dust a figure took shape, shimmering in midair before him. Lira! She held out her hands pleadingly, her lips moving, and he he-ard, "Danaer, help me! He is here! They are here!"

"The sorkra! It is wizardry, Bloody Sword. . . ."

"Ai! But what sort—!"

Shaartre and Danaer's unit mates were pointing in fear, and Branra -and Gordyan gawked in amazement at Lira's image. They saw it, too, and seemed to hear her as well! The power of her magic—and the desperate need that fed it!

"More Markuand tricks," Gordyan guessed. "Trying to bewitch him."

"I think not." Branra narrowed his eyes, looking first at the illusion and then at Danaer.

"Treachery!" Lira shrieked at Danaer. "They are attacking the Traech Sorkra and the Royal Commander! Help us!"

Danaer yanked his roan's head around, brutalizing the animal in his frenzy. Branra was shouting, "Wait,

Troop Leader, we will—Sha-artre! Fetch a squad and follow him quickly. Now! Spare nothing!"

"Hyidu," Gordyan called, striving to catch up with his friend. But Danaer was far ahead of him already, beating a cruel tattoo on his horse's ribs.

If only the roan could fly, as the Markuand's demon snake had flown!

The dagger's flaming summons never ceased, though he had left Lira's magical illusion behind. He cursed his blindness as he galloped through pockets of the battle, along the base of Yeniir, heading for the pass. Why had he been so quick to assume Kandra's death had fulfilled Osyta's prophecy? Kandra was dead and Wyaela te Fihar might yet die, as would many another woman and man in this war. But— there had been no face on the body in his dream! An Azsed woman's death must be the sacrifice—an Azsed woman who was also a sorkra, the bitter rival in wizardry of evil Chorii and the Markuand?

He began to beat on his horse's shoulders with the flat of his sword and with his reins and swept his heels from ribs to rump, calling more speed from the foaming beast.

Up out of Yeniir's slopes and through the pass, where the forces of Malol and Ti-Mori had broken him a clear path—the goddess be praised! Danaer fought the roan's failing strength and the hordes of camp followers who clustered on the Plains, hoping to see the show yet fearful of coming too close to the conflict. They dived out of his way, seeing his panic, and he rode on wildly.

The command tent was looming before him. Where were the guards? This was Krantin's heart, and it had been locked within a protective ring of many good soldiers.

They lay on the ground. All the sentries were still, their eyes open and staring at the sky, though there was no wound on them. They were held in the living death of witchcraft!

Danaer's roan collapsed, utterly foundered, and he jumped free, staggering and catching his balance.

then running for the tent. All the flaps were tightly closed ... to shut out what?

In the distance behind him there was a thunder of approaching hoofbeats. Gordyan and Shaartre would be bringing help. But he must not wait. The dagger scorched his side, and with one stroke Danaer swung his sword and slashed an opening through the tent wall, plunging inside.

Cold! And blackness! And amid it were whirling points of eerie light, twinkling spheres seemingly formed of ice, hovering, shining upon the combatants; Lira and those she sought to help, and those who would destroy Krantin's power forever.

Like the sentries, Malol's staff aides were entranced, lying at his feet. He and Nurdanth held out their swords, fighting with steel as Lira and Ulodovol fought with wizardry.

Against them stood four people Danaer had learned to hate. Prince Diilbok and his beautiful mistress, the outcast Hablit, and a man Danaer had never seen yet knew at once.

The Markuand sorcerer, the evil genius who led the invaders and conspired to betray the alliance and this land!

He was very different from Ulodovol, but in some fashion much the same. The Markuand was not elderly, and he was strongly built, his eyes dark, not Irico pale. His robes were mingled white and iridescent, not drab brown as the sorkra's were. He and Ulodovol were the champions here, standing no more than two arm-lengths apart, their features contorted in a savage duel of magic.

Like Malol and Nurdanth, Hablit and the Prince held weapons. But they could not reach each other. Futilely, frustrated, they prodded at a barrier of air between the two factions.

And all the while Lira and Diilbok's woman gesticulated and cried countercharms, aiding their masters and seeking to shatter the other's will.

The cold and blackness tried to close in upon Malol's little party, filling all the rest of the tent. Only where Ulodovol stood did light remain, even though

the torn tent wall flapped and let in the sunlight. There were . . . things in that cold blackness. Presences and gibberings and dreadful forces Danaer remembered too well from previous encounters. He sought to move, to go to Lira's side -and help her in this crucial struggle. Ulodovol's gaunt arms were raised, and sweat poured from his white hair and down his beard. His limbs trembled from the stress of his magic-making.

The wizards warred with eyes and lips and each called on his unseen minions. The Markuand was younger, physically strong, his sorcery of unimaginable potency if he could rule entire armies and bind their tongues against any pain. Ulodovol was frail, weakening, and soon the Markuand and Chorii must break through his counterspells!

Lira's gaze flicked momentarily toward Danaer, appealing. His sword had become a great rock, too heavy to hold, torn from him by Chorii's vengeful spell-casting. He was Lira's man, and as much a target as her hated foe, the little sorkra from Sarlos.

The sword slipped from his nerveless fingers and fell in the dirt. No matter. He was still armed, with fire and the magic of the smoking mountains. Danaer's grip tightened on the dagger hilt.

There was a rush of air as the tent flap was torn back, and then Gordyan was exclaiming, aghast, "Argan guard us!" Abruptly, his voice and those of the men with him choked into nothing. They had hoped to support Danaer, but now they were entranced, prisoners within their own bodies, as he was.

Danaer forced his thoughts toward Lira and Ulodovol, feeding them strength through his will and the dagger. At that, though sorely beset by the whirling darkness, Ulodovol seemed to grow still taller, hope entering his wrinkled features. More presences gathered, friendly ones, from Lira's Web, and now they touched Danaer—and he could move!

He wanted to reach the source of evil, the Markuand, but others were opposing him, the tools of that mighty wizard and Chorii. Hablit turned sluggishly to counter Dan-aer's attack, for he had no sor-

ceress who guided him with her love and magics. But Diilbok did, and the Prince became a most dangerous foe, his nobleman's blade out, pointed for Danaer's breast.

Danaer, too, had his woman to aid him, and now several of the hovering ice-spheres burst, shattering brilliant fragments over the scene, momentarily bhnd-ing the three men. Blinking against that radiance, Danaer tried to strike at Diilbok, the nearest enemy, aware at the last instant of his stroke that the Prince's mistress was flinging herself before her lord to shield him.

The obsidian-edged knife bit deeply, reddening to the hilt, and Chorii shrieked. Her cry was a tangible thing which nearly knocked Danaer from his feet.

Hablit was bellowing, "Help me kill him, you whoreson lit!"

But Prince Diilbok had abandoned the war. He had dropped his sword and was cradling his dying mistress. Chorii gazed up at him in stunned disbelief, her eyes misting, blood spreading over her breasts as her lover embraced her and called her name. Diilbok was crooning piteously, oblivious to the conflict.

As Chorii's life ebbed, Danaer again felt Lira's touch and the wizardly caress of her Web, making him their weapon. Unbearable tension filled the tent. Two immense waves of sorcery mounted, rising to their heights.

It must be now!

Hablit's lips were flecked with froth in his rage, and Lira smiled faintly. Her master's tremors lessened, new vigor in his limbs. Somehow Danaer knew the moment was at hand, and he knew Ulodovol's firm resolve—that the Markuand wizard would not escape his just punishment.

Malol, Nurdanth, Gordyan ... all of them were stirring, not yet themselves again, but recovering. The enemy magician was losing his power over them. And as he did, Hablit twisted this way and that, his helpless fury growing.

The wizard was going to escape. But how? How had he fled at Deki, when Branra and Danaer had

trapped him in the tunnel? And how had he destroyed that city, magically carrying Chorii and Markuand soldiers inside the walls where they could betray the Dekans? How, indeed, had he reached the Royal Commander's tent, bringing Chorii and Hablit with him? They had released Prince Diilbok and—

"I know your secret, and I will have you!" Ulodovol exulted, and as he did, Danaer freed himself from the alien's spell and rushed to Lira, holding her close and thrusting his dagger toward the Markuand's heart.

And the Markuand and Ulodovol vanished!

With a violent wrench, Danaer was being torn out of his body, and Lira from hers. They were being swept upward, towed, like a star lancing through the sky and dragging with it fiery wakes. They were leaving the tent and being carried up into the air!

Yet below were his friends and enemies—and himself! He and Lira stood immobile, frozen, their bodies emptied of life.

This was worse than any dream, for Danaer knew he was awake and that all he felt was truly happening. He was floating ever more rapidly, and the tent was falling behind. Lira's presence was very near, as close as his body held hers, and the strange scene below him was receding, just as the Markuand soldier had shrunk into nothing. Was he separated forever from the world of the living, as the enemy soldier had been?