The Dark Glory War (28 page)

And that astonished look remained on his face as Leigh’s blade swept through his neck. The gibberer’s head began a lazy tumble through the air. Dripping blood merged with the black rain, and the body sagged to the ground.

My two-handed swordcut caught a gibberer over his right hip. I opened him up cleanly and spun him away. He flew into the bridge’s wall, then landed hard on his cut flank. I saw him struggle to rise, but his feet found no purchase on wet stone. He convulsed once, then flopped forward onto his face.

In an eyeblink we were through the gibberer line and racing toward the vylaens in the center of the bridge. One faced away from us and raised a hand. A gout of green flame shot up from his palm. He waved his arm in our direction and I assumed he was summoning help from the bridge’s far end. The other one moved toward us and set himself, undaunted by the taunts Leigh shrieked.

That this creature was waiting for us made no sense. I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t doing anything as we closed. I thought for a second that perhaps our disguises had confused it, but then I saw a glint in its dark eyes and I knew why it waited.

We weren’t yet in range.

Leigh ran a step or two in front of me and I knew he had to be the vylaen’s target. The gold glow from Temmer, the shrieking, all of it made Leigh the greatest threat. And, as powerful as Leigh’s sword might be, could it save him from a spell?

He was running into a trap and didn’t know it. I put my head down and picked up my speed. Leigh had never before beaten me in a footrace. Magick sword and a head start or no, if I let him beat me now, I’d be killing him.

It didn’t occur to me until I’d shoved him aside and seen the spark blossom in the vylaen’s right palm that by removing him as a target, I’d pretty much transferred that honor to myself. Leigh started to go down. I twisted to the right and leaped to avoid his sword, but the hilt still caught me in the ankle, spinning me more and exposing my back to the vylaen.

I caught a quick glimpse of those running behind me. Nay was leaping over Leigh’s fallen form. Back a half-dozen paces came Faryaah-Tse, Prince Augustus, and a knot of Alcidese warriors. Then a wall of heat hit me and green flames eclipsed my view. The thick scent of burning fur choked me. I landed heavily on my back, flinging my heels up over my head. I somersaulted over and landed in a kneeling position.

I heard a meaty wetthwack from behind me and came up on one knee as I turned toward the sound. A vylaen with a serious concavity on the right side of his chest—so serious it looked as if his shoulder started where ribs normally end— bounced off the cobbles. On my right Faryaah-Tse flashed past to shove a handblade through the chest of the other vylaen.

All about me hung tattered, charred and smoking bits of gibberer flesh. I felt a stinging burn radiate out from between my shoulders, which was where I guessed the spell had hit me. The disguise, though far from fooling the vylaen, had burned off the virulence in the spell, leaving me alive and relatively unscathed.

Leigh lunged to his feet with an insane fire in his eyes. He started in my direction, his blade coming back for a stroke, then the howls of charging gibberers snapped his head to the left. He answered them in kind and started running toward the enemy.

The rest of us ran after him.We knew he wasn’t invulnerable, but he didn’t seem to have a clue about that. Leigh’s charge, had he been mounted on a warhorse and at the head of a heavy cavalry unit, might well have carried him clean through the score of gibberers coming at us. On foot, however, armed with only a sword and as small as he was, he might as well have hurled himself against a wall.

The charging gibberers, on the other hand, seemed impressed with the little golden tongues of flame playing over Temmer’s edges. They’d also seen two vylaens die and me engulfed in flame, yet keep on coming. As Leigh screamed at them and whirled his blade in a circle above his head, they slowed, then some at the edges turned. The gibberer line collapsed.

Leigh sailed into them, Temmer describing golden disks that sliced through arms and legs, spines and heads. His first victim still twitched on the ground before I reached the pack. With a quick slash I hamstrung one, then brought my blade up and around in a two-handed cut that split another from shoulder to the small of its back.

Our charge carried us through their pack and we turned to face them. The gibberers at the edge sidled away, but Augustus and his men fell on them. Nay’s maul pulped skulls. Faryaah-Tse clawed her hands and raked them through bellies and throats. Warm blood chased away the rain’s chill as I slashed a gibberer’s throat.

Throughout the slaughter, Leigh’s battle cries rose above the whimpers and groans of the dying. I shivered to hear him, though not because my friend sounded insane. What made me shiver was that some part of me shared that madness. We stood there with rainwater washing blood over our feet and I was happy, I was proud.

I felt as if all I was ever meant for was killing.

I shivered again, then began the long trudge back to the bridge’s north side. As we came over the crest, a crouched man rose from beside one of the gibberer bodies and walked toward us. I could tell it was Scrainwood from the way his long locks hung limp in the rain. His right hand ended in a poniard and his sword remained in its scabbard. In his left hand he held a gibberer scalp.

Scrainwood brandished the dagger. “They’re all dead. I’ve made certain of that.”

Augustus pointed back toward the bridge’s far side. “The garrison there is dead, too, or soon will be.”

The Prince of Oriosa twirled his blade between his fingers. “I’ll make sure.”

I held up a hand. “They’re dead.”

Scrainwood went to say something to me, but Heslin cut him off. “There’s no time to be about silliness. Get over here. We need to get this bridge down now.”

As we left the bridge, Seethe and the elven archers joined us. Aside from a couple of men who had taken some fairly superficial cuts—in one case a warrior had gashed his own leg when he missed with an ax stroke—we’d come away unhurt. The battle’s result was nothing short of miraculous, and had to be attributed to planning, surprise, and Leigh’s magickal sword.

The magicker dropped on one knee and pressed his good hand to the bridge’s base. “This first spell will loosen the mortar. You can remove the paving stones, then we get down to the supports. If they’re wood, we can burn them. Otherwise I’ll have to use some other magicks.”

A white-blue glow brightened beneath his palm, then little sparks shot out like bugs, racing along the lines of mortar. They jigged and jagged, left and right, curving around some stones, angling between others. Had the bridge been ice and they cracks, the structure would have fallen apart in a heartbeat. As it was, the sparks played out maybe six feet from where Heslin touched the bridge.

The mage sat back and shook the gibberer-flesh hood free of his head. “That is odd.”

Prince Augustus frowned. “What’s the matter?”

“That spell should have shattered the mortar, and it should have extended all the way across it.”

“Why didn’t it?”

Heslin shrugged, then stood. “I think the bridge is alive.”

Scrainwood’s jaw dropped open. “What insanity is this? How can a bridge be alive?”

The magicker turned and coldly regarded the prince. “It has aweirun.”

“Not possible. It’s man-made.” Scrainwood waved the suggestion away with both hands. “Destroy the bridge and be quick about it.”

Heslin’s voice took on an edge. “I am a man. My magicks work well on inanimate objects. Were I older, more learned, I might be able to destroy it with a spell.”

“Older?” Scrainwood turned to the elves. “What about you, have you magick talent? You’re all older.”

The Loquelves looked at Scrainwood with expressions running from mild amusement to cold contempt. Seethe just shook her head.

Faryaah-Tse Kimp pointed a yellow finger at the bridge. “Look.”

It took me a moment to see it and, at first, I mistook it for a little wave of water washing down the stones and distorting them. Then I realized that the distortion came from the stones themselves. Something was moving toward us as if it had burrowed beneath the stone’s flesh. When it neared our end of the bridge, it slowed and gently prodded the gibberers’ bodies. It sank back into the stone for a moment, then reappeared.

As the bump grew, it took on a vaguely humanoid form. It had a head—sort of a misshapen lump that sat directly on broad shoulders. The arms had a sweeping curve that roughly mirrored the bridge’s arc. A perfectly shaped keystone about the size of my fist lay centered in its chest. The shoulders tapered down into a narrow waist, then broadened back out into powerful thighs and legs with broad stable feet.

The bridge’sweirun appeared to be made exactly like the bridge, with all the stones composing it fitted together and then joined with mortar. Natural depressions in the face served as eye sockets, but only shadows resided there. The spirit shifted its shoulders to look at us, then reached down with a hand to prod one of the dead gibberers.

“Why do they not wake up?” Its voice grated harshly, while resembling the whine of the wind through the pillars and obelisks. Despite the inhuman nature of its voice, the question came with a childlike innocence. “Why do they leak?”

Heslin canted his head toward theweirun. “You see, Prince Scrainwood, the bridgeis alive.”

Scrainwood said nothing, but Augustus frowned. “How can this be, Heslin? This bridge, it’s all of five hundred years old. How can it have aweirunV The mage shrugged. “Perhaps the ghosts of men who died building it imbued the bridge with their essence. Perhaps the bridge is so important that the very fact of its existence demanded a spirit inhabit it. I don’t know.”

The urZrethi bowed her head to theweirun. “Forgive the rudeness. They will not wake because they are dead. They leak because we have killed them.”

Theweirun slammed its hands together, striking sparks. All of us save the urZrethi leaped back, and Scrainwood a bit more than most. “They guarded me. Why kill them?”

Faryaah-Tse gentled her voice. “They were not guarding you; they made you into a trap.”

“No, no, not a trap.” Theweirun stamped a foot. “They guaranteed safe passage.”

“For their kind.”

“They guaranteed safe passage!”

Scrainwood snorted. “It’s an imbecile and it’s working for Chytrine.”

Seethe narrowed her golden eyes at Scrainwood. “If it is an imbecile, as you suggest, can it be responsible for its conduct?”

“Immaterial and irrelevant, Seethe.” The prince sneered at her. “We need the bridge down, alive or not. It’s mentally unsound. It is a retard.” He flicked a hand at Leigh. “You have a magick sword. Kill it. That will destroy the bridge, won’t it?”

I reached out to stay Leigh’s hand, but he made no move to draw Temmer.

“No!” Nay stepped between Leigh and theweirun and stabbed his spike into the earth, almost pinning one of Scrainwood’s feet to the ground. “Don’t matter if it’s dull or not. No killing.”

“But we need the bridge down.”

Nay growled and poked Scrainwood in the nose with his index finger. “My way or not at all.”

Heslin nodded. “Please, Master Carver.”

With his hands open, Nay walked over to theweirun. “The killing had to be done. You remember, before they came, there were others.”

“I remember.”

Nay kept his voice soft, using the same tones I had heard my parents use when speaking to a child. While theweirun might have been born with the bridge, it was but a child as far as spirits, gods, and godlings were concerned.

Nay smiled tentatively. “And you remember they were scared, very scared.”

Theweirun drew a stony hand across his cheek. “Their eyes rained on me.”

“Because they were afraid, very afraid. They were being chased.” Nay spoke slowly, as if telling a story to a child. He’d clearly figured out that thisweirun was childlike, not slow, the way Scrainwood described him.It is slow,but only slow in the way a river cuts a gorge. Nay’s dealing with this weirunthe only way possible.

Nay sat down, crossing his legs in front of himself, and theweirun likewise sat. “The friends of these dead ones were chasing the frightened people. They are gone from here. For now. But they will return. Up the road are more who are scared. When the bad ones return, the scared people will run, or will leak and be dead.”

“Leak and be dead.” Theweirun reached out and stroked one of the gibberer corpses as if it were a dead kitten. “Dead is bad.”

“You always help people. You are strong for them. You carry them across the river. You protect them.” Nay smiled. “You protect them very well.”

Theweirun nodded slowly. “I protect them.”

“But now, the bad ones will be returning. They will use your strength to hurt the others. You will help the bad ones. You will help them make others leak and be dead.” A tremble entered Nay’s voice. “More people will die because you help the bad ones.”

“Dead is bad.”

“Dead is very bad.” A distant rumble of thunder underscored Nay’s words. “If you want, you can help us stop the bad ones.”

“Yes, help.”

“The cost will be great. It will be everything. But, it will be less than the pain of knowing that you hurt others. Do you understand?”

Theweirun ‘s head flowed around in a circle to survey the bridge. “If I am here, others will be dead.”

“Yes.”

“If I am not here, I will be dead.”

Nay’s lower lip quivered and he nodded wordlessly. “You will live in our memories for this bold act.”

“It is not enough.”

“What?”

“I was bad. I will be no more. No more pain from me, but I know pain.” Theweirun extended a hand and touched Nay over his heart. “You will help me. Help me atone for the pain.”

“I will.”

“You will promise me.”

Nay’s reply came in a hoarse whisper. “I promise.”

Theweirun flowed back to his feet and pulled Nay to his with one hand. The spirit’s hand then touched his own chest and pulled free the keystone there. It glowed and sparkled with internal fire, in an instant transformed from lifeless stone to an opalescent gem. Theweirun reached out and pressed the stone into Nay’s hands, then gave him a little shove that propelled him back off the bridge.