Master of Whitestorm (15 page)

The hand that held the wounded man’s gave no twitch in warning, but abided, steady and firm. The knife seemed to come from nowhere; it entered fast, painlessly clean, precisely below Vwern’s left ear. His awareness ebbed swiftly in a flood of arterial blood.

Korendir did not rise. Beside him, the corpse ceased to shudder; the chest quit breathing and sagged motionless, finished with struggle and life. Still, the mercenary remained. He unlaced his fingers from the dead man’s and wiped the warmed blood from his knuckles. Meticulously he cleaned his blade. He closed the eyes that gleamed empty within a pillow of leaves and covered the slack face with his cloak. Then he straightened. Moonlight revealed what Vwern, or any other in Neth’s Eleven Kingdoms might never be permitted to see.

Tears rinsed Korendir’s fine-boned face; as he wept his expression was stripped by an ache of compassion that flowed straight from the heart.

“By my mother, you were brave,” he said to the still form at his feet.

That moment, a wereleopard might have taken him without a blow struck in token defense.

The interval ended suddenly, like the immolation of too dry tinder snapped into flame by a spark. Korendir blotted his cheeks. He returned his cold knife to its sheath, retrieved his abandoned sword, and moved off without a backward glance. By the time he caught up with the others, his expression was impervious as quartz.

“That’s one on your soul, to equal the one on mine,” he said softly to Emmon as he passed.

Hillgate’s son slapped a hand to his belt knife. The Master of Whitestorm never so much as flinched, but kept going until he reached the head of the column. Emmon was deranged enough to strike from behind when provoked; but whether Korendir cared at all, or whether some instinct convinced him that the seventeen survivors who had volunteered for this march would have acted to defend him in that moment, remained unclear. The mercenary from Whitestorm had completed a mercy stroke that others shrank to contemplate; the deed had been accomplished with such lack of ceremony that no man’s pride became brutalized. For that grace, Korendir earned a respect that admitted tolerance for his presumed abuse of Carralin. The townsfolk would never forgive her murder. But now, only madness offered cause to prolong resentment; Emmon Hillgate’s son was left to nurse his grievance alone.

* * *

Night was beginning to fail. On his previous expedition, Korendir had found that twilight was a time of transition for the wereleopards. He had neither been attacked nor had he observed any movement through yesterday’s daybreak. Now he banked upon the presumption that the creatures preferred to retire during their vulnerable time of change; in cat-form, in daylight, the beasts were far more difficult to kill. If this band of inexperienced villagers was to win reprieve for their families, their safety must be secured before sunrise.

The River Ellgol sprang from a cleft at the base of the shale cliffs that footed the Doriads. No trees grew there; against the knees of the mountains, the forest ended as if sliced. Seeds that sought foothold on the cracked and moss-rotted stone beyond grew to crabbed saplings, then died, leaving skeletons like fingers hooked in an agony of torture. The river issued from a seamed maw beneath; waters welled up from the earth’s dark and roared down a ravine, to carve a more meandering course through the valley.

The party from Mel’s Bye paused beneath the crest of the outcrop. In the gray half-light before sunrise, Korendir hurried them through a meal of bread, cheese, and sweet ale. Then the mercenary placed half of the archers in crannies overlooking the forest. Their task was to arrow down any wereleopard who left the cover of the wood, while companions razed the trees in a swath a hundred yards wide by any method that would serve; fire, axe, or landslide, Korendir made it clear he did not care, so long as the glade surrounding the cliffs was cleared to the last standing twig. Seasoned logs from the deadfalls were to be hewn into firewood, and stacked alongside the river mouth.

On the heels of a nightlong march, the work he proposed was brutal enough to wilt the stoutest spirit; yet there were no slackers. Having tasted the blood of the wereleopard which had preyed upon their kinfolk for so long, the villagers felled trees with determination. Even Emmon took up an axe. His frame sweated with hellbent exertion, and his eyes shone fanatically bright; he labored as if by brute strength he could absolve his part in the misfortune that had ended Vwern’s life.

In contrast to Hillgate’s son’s passions, Korendir applied himself with the chill of new steel forged for bloodshed. Stripped to breeches and swordbelt, he assembled a bundle of unlit torches and set the remaining men to climbing. Barely visible in the early light, and dampened by mists of falling water, his picked party toiled upward toward a shelf of rock undercut by the current of the Ellgol. Korendir insisted that wereleopards entered Southengard through the mazes of water-tunnelled caves that riddled the mountains behind. He planned to seal their access by engineering a rockslide above the river, but work could not commence until the caverns had been secured from inside.

Korendir explained in snatches as he climbed, the gist of his strategy based on the wereleopards’ compulsion to shift form when exposed to transitions in light. The stone of the cliff face was rotten with weather and age; shale crumbled unexpectedly underfoot, to clatter downslope and crash through the undergrowth below. The most skeptical villager allowed Korendir his point. Protected by bonfires, a work team with pick axes and shovels could undermine the loosened shale, fashion shoring of timbers and plank, then tear such bracing away to precipitate a rockfall.

The men who attempted the ascent pressed forward with a will. Hard the mercenary who led them might be, and lacking in decency and warmth, yet the Master of Whitestorm had proven himself capable. Mel’s Bye might be a poor town, if he lived to collect his fee; but his direction offered hope that the farms might be safe to recover prosperity in the future.

Korendir reached the cave opening. Through whorls of mist from the falls, the lead men saw him grasp a crevice and heave his body inside. By the time those following reached the outcrop, he was busy lighting torches. An arc of them burned at his feet. Heat slicked his face like a gypsy entertainer prepared for an exhibition of juggling; except his frown held no hint of gaiety, and his sleeves were crusted with the blood of a man and a beast.

“Sethon goes last,” he said without looking up. “Not because he lacks courage, but because he’s the youngest.” The striker flared between Korendir’s hands. “Bachelors march at the fore, behind me. Fathers with young children will follow in back.” When the last torch was set blazing, the mercenary’s gaze touched each man in turn. “The order of march is a formality. Any one of you careless enough to get killed will find your own way to hell, because the others outside cutting trees have no choice but depend on us.”

Korendir pressed a torch into Sethon’s hands and drew his blade. Then he stamped the wooden grip of the cresset lying nearest and flipped it like a trickster’s flare into his hand.

Eastward, the sky had brightened; mist off the falls changed from blue to subtle rose, forewarning of the dawn to come. Korendir dropped onto his belly. With a scrape of fabric over shale, he dragged himself into the aperture which accessed the caves. The men picked up torches and trailed after in single file. Sethon the miller’s son entered last, eyes burned by the soot thrown off by oiled rags. He breathed damp, heated air, and the sourness of other mens’ sweat. His ears heard little beyond the confined roar of the watercourse which thrashed and tumbled through the caverns, fed by the drip of countless subterranean springs.

Korendir crawled to the end, where the stone widened out. His cresset guttured and whipped in the draft as he straightened as far as his knees, shuffled forward, and at last gained space to stand.

“Hurry,” he encouraged the man who came at his heels. The cavern brightened as the villagers emerged.

Raised torches revealed walls that sloped upward to a ceiling that sparkled with mineral deposits. Korendir advanced across a floor sleek-wet with run-off. His cresset threw orange reflections off his swordblade, the puddles scattered underfoot, and from his wrist, scraped open and freshly bleeding after his traverse through the passage. The sting of split scabs must have pained him, yet when one of the men expressed concern, he spurned both help and companionship.

“Stand together!” His rebuke echoed outward like the crack of a marble chipper’s mallet. “Pool the light from the torches, and keep your eyes to the walls.” Then, as if knowing he had rejected an honest act of courage, he said, “Expect an attack at any moment.”

A spill of gravel rattled from the darkness overhead. Pebbles bounced and rolled and scattered ripples across the puddles.

Already Korendir had thrown himself aside, his steel upraised and ready. “Get Sethon to light more torches!”

The wereleopard dropped that moment. Man-formed, muscled for murder, it landed with the recovery of a tiger. Steel sang through air as Korendir lunged. His target twisted clear in a reflex too fast for sight. Somebody shouted. That sound spared the mercenary’s life. The wereleopard spun, slit-eyed, and sprang at the farmers clustered before the passage.

“Throw down your torches!” screamed Korendir.

The three men not panicked obeyed. Flame struck wet stone with a sizzle of oil; grease-soaked rags spread a slick on the puddles, and fire flared instantaneously wider. Sudden light rinsed the crannies, and forced the wereleopard to metamorphosis.

Its stride faltered, changed in mid-charge to a stagger. Korendir swung his sword. “Light more torches. Quickly!”

Sethon fumbled after rags and oil, while someone else cut the ties that contained the bundled wood. Quickly as frightened men responded, the wereleopards moved faster. Another one launched from the shadows.

The first still thrashed, impaled on Korendir’s blade. The swordsman fought to stay upright as the wereleopard kicked and slashed. The razor length of steel twisted in its chest, then wedged immovably into bone. Korendir yanked, unable to clear his sword, while the unwounded predator sprang.

Desperate, one of the farmers threw a torch. Flaming rags and a billet of beechwood impacted the wereleopard’s flank. It twisted with a ringing snap of jaws and caught the light full in both eyes. Change followed; its outlines blurred. The delay gave Korendir space to free his steel, but the stroke that slew his attacker was dealt by a woodcutter from Mel’s Bye.

The caverns rang with the howl of dying enemies and the rough cheers of men. Sethon arose with an armload of ready torches and distributed them among the villagers.

“Quarter the cave,” the Master of Whitestorm directed. “Find every entrance that might possibly admit a wereleopard, and flank those holes with torches. If we’re lucky the change will disadvantage whatever beasts charge through. Bowfire can take them safely from a distance.”

All saw wisdom in the tactic. The woodcutter who had skewered his first wereleopard moved off with a swagger, and the others followed, except one.

“What about yourself?” he questioned Korendir.

For the mercenary made no move to lead, but stood checking his bloodied sword edge for flaws. He found none, wiped his fingers on his hose, and impatiently regarded the speaker, a farmer named Nevel whose face showed the labors of seasons exposed to summer sun.

“I’m going on,” the mercenary said. “Somewhere these caverns connect with the watercourse of the Ellgol.”

Taller by half a head, Nevel shrugged wide shoulders. “Why not balk the wereleopards from here?”

The Master of Whitestorm looked up with incredulous astonishment. “Neth, man, this place is a warren of holes and shadows. A man caught alone here would die in a minute, and there’s no safe haven to fall back to. Need I go on about space to store supplies and dry wood? There are men left out in the open. Every minute we delay, they remain in terrible danger.”

Nevel fingered his weapon, an axe designed for hewing planks. “Just you shouldn’t be going alone. At least take Sethon, to hold the torch.”

“Never Sethon,” Korendir returned, abrupt to the point of viciousness. “Vwern was one too many. Now clear my path.”

Slow to think, slower still to move, the field hand squared his jaw. “I’ll go, then, and no word from you will stop me.”

“You’re more mad than Emmon.” Korendir gestured ahead with his bloodied sword. “That way.”

Torchlight showed a seam cut through cavern walls. Beyond a gleam of wet stone, shadows lay thick as the felt used by priests to shroud tombs. Nevel showed signs of misgiving; but Korendir strode on without a glance to see whether his self-appointed escort would follow. Stung by that imperious self-assurance, and too proud to accept that his offer lay beneath regard, the field hand collected two torches and dogged the mercenary’s tracks.

The ceiling sloped sharply past the entrance. First forced to stoop, and then to crawl, clumsily fighting the impediment of weaponry and smoking flares, Korendir and Nevel made their way down the damp passage. The light became lost behind, along with the echoed conversation of the others. The air turned thick with the silence of the earth, punctured like harp notes with water drops; always like a litany behind ran the thunder of the Ellgol’s mighty current.

Torch smoke made the eyes sting unbearably. Hardly able to discern Korendir’s heels in the gloom ahead, Nevel dragged stubbornly onward. The stink of uncured hide filled his nostrils. Slime and mud caked his clothes; once something live squirmed under his palm, and though by nature he respected religion, he cursed the variety of Neth’s creation.

Korendir paid no mind, but continued, the scrape of his sword sheath the only sound of his passage.

“What if the wereleopards are able to swim the river?” the field hand gasped. “If so, no rockslide will block them, and all our troubles will continue.”

The Master of Whitestorm paused and kicked once; his feet disappeared. The roar of the river swelled to deafening proportions, and his voice, in reply, floated strangely thin through the passage. “That’s the other thing we’re here to find out.”