The Western Wizard (77 page)

Garn spun, darting glances in all directions, but his assailant had disappeared. “An armored man attacked me,” he explained briefly. Now that the battle had ended, he envied the other’s battle garb and the training that enabled him to use armor as a weapon.

Colbey’s gaze followed Garn’s. “Northman?”

Garn recalled the pallid skin he had seen through the
helmet’s eyeholes. He also believed he had caught a glimpse of a yellow lock of hair. “I think he was.” Garn’s lips felt painfully dry, and he licked them repeatedly. “Anyone got some water?”

Above the chattering of crickets and the whirring calls of foxes, Garn heard another sound.

Apparently, Colby heard it as well. “Horse.” The Renshai addressed Garn. “He’s riding northeast. We’ll track him in the morning. Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Garn said, though his head buzzed with an exhaustion far out of proportion to the quickness of the fight. “Just a scratch.”

Vashi and Tannin reached the edge of the clearing.

“Did he have the coiled snake symbol?” Mitrian asked.

Her words seemed jumbled to Garn. His mouth burned, and his need for water became desperate. “He was wearing gauntlets.” Speaking made his lips crack. “I . . . couldn’t see. Water, please. Give me some water now.”

Tannin passed his waterskin. As Garn drained the contents, Colbey’s features became noticeably alarmed. Protectively, Garn glared. Desiccated eyes blurred the Renshai into a warped, vicious parody, a demon hell-bent on stealing the water necessary for life. The voices of his companions transformed to blood-wild cheers; the spruce-rimmed clearing became the gladiator pit. Garn’s eyes blazed emerald madness. A dull ache pounded through his body, pulling in all directions, as if to tear him apart. Hands seized him, the grip of an enemy.
Kill or be killed.
Garn drew his sword and sprang with a howl.

*  *  *

Colbey dodged Garn’s sudden, wild stroke, flinging Vashi from the path of the blade. “Garn! What in Hel—” He broke off as Garn rushed him, blade flailing. Surprised Renshai scattered from the nonsensical attack, aside from Colbey, who held his position stoically. The ex-gladiator’s blade cleft the air beside the elder, then surged toward him, scarcely controlled and totally uncalculated.

Colbey ducked beneath the attack, catching Garn’s hot,
dry wrists. The larger man collapsed against him. Colbey lowered Garn to the ground, alarmed by the short, sharp wheezes of his breaths. The sword slipped from Garn’s awkward grasp, but his arms lashed wildly.

Avoiding the frenzied sweeps of Garn’s hands, Mitrian wrapped her arms around his chest. “Garn?” she said. “Garn!” She threw a desperate glance at Colbey. “What’s going on? Why’s he doing that?”

As Mitrian turned her attention to Colbey, Garn lunged for her. His fingers curled around her throat. The muscles in his arms tightened.

Mitrian started a scream that Garn’s grip choked short. She grabbed for his wrists, her strength miniscule in comparison. Garn kept his eyes clamped closed. Despite exertion, no sweat spangled his brow.

Tannin tackled Garn, hauling him backward. Colbey brought his arms under and through Garn’s with an abrupt lurch intended to break the hold. But despite superior leverage, his effort met muscled arms like iron. Mitrian’s attempts at escape grew frenzied. She bucked and jerked, fingernails raking Colbey as often as Garn.

Apparently drawn by Garn’s howl, Arduwyn, Rache, Tarah, and Modrey arrived.

Tannin tugged at Garn, the latter as immobile as any boulder. Vashi drew and swung. The flat of her blade crashed against the side of Garn’s head, sending him sprawling. The sword rebounded from Garn’s skull, and Vashi naturally curled its momentum for a second strike. Colbey, Tannin, and Mitrian jerked away at once. The sword cleaved through the place where Colbey had been, skimming Tannin and missing Mitrian and Colbey cleanly. Garn jolted to the ground, fingers crooked to claws. Mitrian gasped for breath, rubbing at a neck crisscrossed with red welts.

Colbey knelt at Garn’s side, alert for sudden movement. But though the ex-gladiator’s eyes were wide and open, he went still. Radiating from him, Colbey read a pain so intense it nearly brought him to tears. Garn knew a mixture of raw rage, paranoia, and hatred so intense that it ached as severely as any physical agony.

In his days among Northmen, Colbey had seen many warriors partake of the berserker mushrooms that sent
them into a wild frenzy of attack, sometimes long after a fatal wound should have claimed them. Once, he had seen a Nordmirian take too much, frothing and foaming in a crazed circle, vomiting continuously, his pupils huge and his mind as empty as an insect’s. A friend had given him an antidote imported from the Eastlands, an herb with purple flowers and purple-black berries, the stem of which, when pulverized, could counteract the mushroom. Soon after taking the herb, the Nordmirian had demonstrated symptoms similar to Garn’s, before he quit breathing and died. Later, in his study of herb lore, Colbey had discovered that the cure was right, but the dose overzealous, the antidote more fatal than the poison in the wrong proportion.

Colbey tested his theory, finding Garn’s mouth dry, his pupils like pinpoints, and his brow hot. But, where fever normally induced sweating, Garn’s skin felt parched. His heart fluttered, faster than the elder could count the pulses. Colbey’s sharp eyes found the rent in Garn’s tunic. Drawing his knife, he cut cautiously around the opening, revealing a short but deep puncture wound in Garn’s shoulder. He no longer harbored any doubt. And if the herb was the antidote for the mushroom, the mushroom could be an antidote for the herb.

“Why’s he doing this?” Hysteria edged Mitrian’s voice and manner. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

Colbey looked up, buffeted by the nearly paralyzing concern wafting from Mitrian. Mixed with the agony of Garn’s thoughts, the combination sent shivers through him, nearly disabling him. Suddenly, Colbey’s mind gift seemed more like a curse. “Garn’s poisoned, Mitrian.”

“Gods!” Mitrian screamed. She fell to her knees at Garn’s side. Pawing her waterskin free, she emptied it on the wound that Colbey had exposed, scrubbing as if this could clear Garn’s system of the herb.

Arduwyn sat beside her, his expression pinched in pain. He placed a comforting arm around her as she worked.

Colbey continued. “There is an antidote.”

Mitrian looked up hurriedly, her task forgotten.

“It’s a mushroom some Northmen use to cloud all but Valhalla from their worthless minds. It has dead white
gills and tiny orange flecks on its hood.” Colbey did not add that, as far as he knew, it grew only in the Northlands. No matter the possibility, they had to try to save Garn.

Mitrian rose. Most of the others turned, prepared to scour the forest for a mushroom Colbey hoped they would find. “Stay in pairs,” Colbey instructed. “Avoid anyone who isn’t one of us. If you see the Northman, don’t try to fight him unless you have no choice. Get back here, and let me know where he is.” He turned his attention directly on Vashi. “That means you, too.”

Vashi grumbled something unintelligible, but constrained by time, she did not press the point.

Colbey turned his attention to the weakest member of the group. Despite his knowledge of woodlands, Arduwyn would prove useless in combat, except at a distance. “Arduwyn, you’ll stay with me. Help me get Garn back near the horses. We’ll all meet there.”

The Renshai galloped into the forest in hopeful pairs: Rache and Mitrian, Tarah and Modrey, Vashi and Tannin. Garn ceased his thrashing to concentrate on breathing. Colbey called strength to his limbs, hefted Garn’s shoulders, and waited. Arduwyn took the ex-gladiator’s legs, his single eye brimming with tears. In silence, they carried Garn back to the camp and set him down in the shade, away from the fire that would only aggravate his already dry, feverish skin.

For some time, Colbey sat in silence as dawn chased away crickets and slinking creatures that inhabited the night. Garn lay still, but far from peaceful. A swollen tongue protruded from his opened mouth, and he painfully sucked breaths into failing lungs.

Arduwyn paced, needing movement as desperately as Garn needed air. At length, the hunter turned on Colbey, apparently incensed by the Renshai’s calm. “You consider yourself a healer. Do something! Anything.”

Colbey felt a light die in Garn, a part of his mind that he had nurtured and built through a decade. The loss stabbed through the old Renshai. He winced, crouching at Garn’s side. He emptied his last waterskin in a gentle stream over Garn’s fevered brow and parched tongue. “Without the cure, there’s nothing I can do.”

“I’ve never seen mushrooms like the ones you described!”

“I didn’t make them up.” Colbey had grown tired of friends and companions questioning his integrity, yet the change in Garn hurt too much for him to take offense at anything smaller. He dropped propriety to explore Garn’s thoughts, and what he found there made him ill. All the things that Garn had hated, had worked so long and hard to leave behind, had returned. His mind flashed images of pit fights. Blood and gore splashed through the pictures, accompanied by the cold snap of bone and the heavy odor of death. Colbey found a black void that had once harbored Garn’s control. Nothing remained to salvage there, and the rot seethed, spreading to the last vestiges of caring, leaving only the constancy of an inescapable life of whips, chains, and bars, the need to kill, and the certainty of a desperate, ugly end. Finally, the memories of friends snapped out, and Colbey knew nothing that was truly Garn remained to salvage. He retreated in revulsion. “He’s beyond cure.”

Arduwyn blinked, voiceless.

Colbey drew Sif’s needle, the
nådenal
, believing he had found the one worthy of its final mercy.

“No.” Arduwyn’s eye went nearly as hollow as Garn’s. “What are you doing?”

“What must be done.”

“What? No!” Arduwyn stepped between Colbey and Garn. “You’re not going to kill him, you monster! So long as he lives, there’s hope.”

Colbey felt Garn’s pain as his own. “He’s beyond cure. If our companions returned now with an armload of the berserker drug, we couldn’t save him. Even if we could restore life, Garn would be an invalid. We wouldn’t know him. He could never again wield a weapon.”

“Whether Garn can wield a weapon is your concern, not mine. So long as he lives, there’s a chance. I won’t let you take that from him. Not at any price.”

Colbey took another step toward Garn, the silver head of the
nådenal
growing warm in his fist. “The price,” Colbey said, “is pain. While we discuss the fate of a quivering creature that is no longer our companion, Garn is dying in the fashion he always feared he would but
believed he had escaped.” Colbey paused, weighing Garn’s suffering against the pain his words would cost the hunter. “Garn is in the gladiator pit. Every moment he lives prolongs that agony.” Colbey took one more step.

Arduwyn’s hand closed over his scimitar, and he drew with the awkwardness that characterizes a desperate need for quickness that exceeds accuracy. His single eye betrayed no fear, dark and serious. He looked like a mother mouse standing in defense against a lion.

Colbey went still. Arduwyn’s loyalty pleased him, though he hated the suffering it would inflict on Garn. The decision tore him apart. In the end, he chose audacity over mercy, as always. Colbey sheathed the
nådenal
and gave the victory to Arduwyn. He moved to the fire, sharing Garn’s nightmare until its end.

*  *  *

Colbey sat unmoving on a deadfall, watching crimson fingers of flame stretch toward the sun from Garn’s pyre, fire shadows flickering through the roiling cover of clouds. It summoned the mushroom seekers from their fruitless task. All but one returned empty-handed. Mitrian cradled mushrooms of white and gray and amber, as if the mere act of carrying them would convert them into the one she sought. When she reached the others, the mushrooms fell from her like tears, and she launched herself at Garn’s pyre.

Tannin reacted first. He grabbed the grief-mad woman’s arm.

Mitrian twisted free. She caught Tannin a blow with her fist that sent him staggering away with a cry of pain. Rache and Colbey moved together. Each seized one of Mitrian’s arms, pinning her, writhing and screaming, to the ground.

“No, no, no, no, no! Let me go!”

Colbey tightened his grip, his knee clamping her shoulder to the forest floor. “Mitrian, stop. It’s neither a noble nor worthwhile way to die.”

“Death in glory, Mama,” Rache reminded. “A place in Valhalla.” His own grief made his words ring hollow, and stimulated other thoughts. He studied Colbey, his need tangible. “Papa fought. Did he find Valhalla?”

Colbey had seen no
Valkyrie
to confirm the possibility, and he doubted it would happen. Garn had been the consummate atheist. The gods had ignored his prayers in his youth, when the guards’ whips and the constant battles had nearly broken the little humanity that remained in him. Only after Garn had turned away from gods and to himself had he managed to escape and to overcome his own savagery. In manhood, he had shunned the gods of Northlands, Westlands, and Eastlands. “I don’t know,” Colbey admitted. “But knowing Garn, he wouldn’t have wanted to serve gods in the afterlife, in any capacity. Surely, there’s a place for brave nonbelievers. If so, he certainly went there.”

Gradually, Mitrian went limp, and the men released her. She rose without apology, took a seat at Arduwyn’s side, and wept in the hunter’s arms.

Colbey prowled the boundaries of the camp, protecting the grieving party, still uncomfortable with his decision to let Garn despair through the last moments of his life. Though less than an hour, the time had dragged like days. Holding hands, Tarah and Modrey cast pitying looks at Mitrian. Tannin comforted Rache, who stood before the pyre trembling with sorrow and rage. Vashi glared into the forest, apparently seeing death in a combat as too much reward to mourn. She had not known Garn long.

Suddenly, Mitrian leapt to her feet, her sharp, blue eyes obscured by tears. “Northeast,” she said. “We have vengeance to pay.”