The RuneLords (21 page)

When Binnesman next moved, his face was pale, and the wizard stared at the mound of dust in awe. Reaching down, he respectfully prodded it with a finger, then tasted the dirt.

He took another pinch and sprinkled it over Gaborn's left shoulder, then his right, and then his head, chanting, "The earth heal, the earth hide you, the earth make you its own!

"Now," Binnesman whispered, placing his hands on Gaborn's shoulders, "Gaborn Val Orden, I name you Earthborn indeed. As you serve the land, it serves you in return."

Gaborn still smelled rue here in the glade, but now its powerful scent only made his nose itch. He went to the bush, caressed a faded yellow flower, pulled a few leaves from branches.

Gaborn glanced over, saw Binnesman staring at him with something like awe etched into his features.

When Gaborn had taken a dozen more leaves, Binnesman grumbled.

"You don't need enough to wipe out a whole village. Come now, time is short."

The wizard rolled the rue leaves between his hands, and when he held out his palm, the leaves had crumbled to powder. Binnesman took a pouch from around his own neck, put the crumbled leaves into the pouch, and placed it around Gaborn's throat.

Gaborn took it stiffly, wanting to ask a hundred questions. But when he'd first come into this wild, tangled garden, he'd felt a sense of safety, of being protected. Now he recognized time was drawing short, and he felt a sense of urgency. He had no time to question now.

The kitchen maid had been standing this whole while at the edge of the glade, a terrified expression on her face. Now Binnesman led her and Gaborn downhill, to the south wall of the garden, and they hurried along a narrow trail, Gaborn clutching the forcibles in one hand, the hilt of his saber in the other.

He felt so odd. So numb. He wanted to rest, to have time to sort things out.

When they'd reached the far side of the meadow, beneath the shade of the exotic trees, Gabon heard shouting behind. He glanced back up the trail.

Night had almost completely fallen. Gaborn could see lights shining now from the watchtowers of the Dedicates' Keep, and from down below at the Soldiers' Keep, and from the King's own chambers. A few lonely stars had begun to glow in the sky. This surprised him, for the eyebright so aided his vision that it did not seem night.

But uphill, on the trail behind them, far brighter than any other lights, a fiery man strode into view, the green flames flickering across his shoulders like the tongues of snakes, licking the clean skin of his hairless skull.

The flameweaver was behind the gate still, the same gate Gaborn had entered only minutes before. The guards had fallen back from this sorcerer, and the flameweaver reached out a hand. A bolt of sunlight seemed to burst hungrily from his palm, and the iron gate melted and twisted. The flameweaver pushed past the ruined gate, entered the garden.

Behind him came Raj Ahten's scouts. Men in dark robes, searching for Gaborn's scent.

"Hurry!" Binnesman whispered. If these had been normal men, Gaborn would not have feared. But he sensed now that this was no fight between mere mortals that he engaged in. This was Fire, seeking him.

Then they were running through the woods, over marshy ground beside the stream. Just downhill a few hundred yards, the stream would meet with the River Wye, and there Gaborn hoped to find a means of escape. The maid and the wizard could not match Gaborn's speed. He jumped some low bushes, and in a few moments they reached a small cottage with whitewashed wattle and a thatch roof.

"I must go and save my seeds," Binnesman hissed. "Rowan, you know the way to the mill. Take Gaborn. May the Earth be with you both!"

"Come," Rowan said. "This way."

She reached back for his sleeve, pulled him down a brick road. Gaborn did as he was told, rushing with a renewed sense of urgency. He could hear shouting in the meadows behind him. He still had his boots in hand, was painfully aware with each step that he needed to put them on, yet Rowan ran over the uneven stones recklessly, feeling nothing.

Yet even as he ran, he felt...astonished, full of wonder, incapable of comprehending all that had just happened. He wanted to stop, to take time to ponder. But at the moment, he knew it was too dangerous to do so.

At the edge of the garden, Gaborn told Rowan, "Stop, stop. Put on your shoes, before you break every bone in your foot!"

Rowan stopped, put on her own shoes while Gaborn pulled on his boots; then they ran with greater speed.

She raced out the garden gate, along a street to the King's stables, an enormous building of new wood. She pulled one of the doors open.

A stableboy sleeping in the hay just inside the door shouted in alarm, but Gaborn and Rowan rushed past him, past the long stalls. Here, slung from the ceiling in belly harnesses, were dozens of the King's Dedicate horses--horses robbed of wit, brawn, stamina, or metabolism so that the King's own force horses could have greater power. Rowan ran past the long row of stalls, then fled out the back door. Here a stream, the same stream that had flowed through the wizard's garden, wound through a muddy corral, where the horses stamped and neighed in fear. The stream passed under a great stone wall, the Outer Wall to the city's defenses.

Gaborn could not climb that wall, some fifty feet in height. Instead, Rowan squirmed under the wall, where the stone had eroded over the ages. The passage was narrow, too narrow to admit a warrior in armor, but the thin girl and Gaborn squeezed through, getting wet in the icy water.

Now the stream tumbled downhill, down a steep green. All around the stream grew tall pussy willows.

Gaborn looked up. An archer on the walls was posted just above them. He looked down, saw them escape, and pointedly looked the other way.

The ground here was kept open near the walls, so that archers could shoot from above. Gaborn could never have sneaked into the castle from here, not unobserved.

The hillside became steep just below the pussy willows, where it led into some deep birch and alder woods that were so dark that Gaborn could hardly see. Yet it was only a small grove, a triangle of trees barely two hundred yards long and a hundred wide.

Through the trees Gaborn spotted the river now, broad and black. He could hear its soft voice burbling.

He halted, grabbed Rowan's ankle to stop her from crawling farther. On the far side of the river he saw movement: nomen and Frowth giants setting camps in the darkness. The nomen were black shadows in the fields of grain, hunched and clawing. Gaborn knew that the nomen, who preferred to leap on their prey from trees in the starlight, would be able to see well in the night, but he did not know how well.

Though the nomen had invaded from the sea a thousand years before, the Runelords had decimated their numbers, had even gone so far as to sail to their own dark lands beyond the Caroll Sea to wipe them out. Long had their war cries been silenced. They had not been fierce warriors, but were cunning fighters in the darkness. The nomen were now little more than legend. Still, rumor said that nomen inhabited the Hest Mountains, beyond Inkarra, and that they sometimes stole children to eat. The Inkarrans seemed never quite able to wipe the last of the creatures from the rain forests. Gaborn didn't know how much of the tales to believe. Perhaps the nomen could see him even now.

But the woods grew thicker off to the left--and Gaborn spotted a wide diversion dam made of stones. The mill. Its huge water wheel made a great racket, with its grinding and the water splashing.

"Let me lead," he whispered. He moved slowly now through the pussy willows, eeling on his belly, not wanting to attract the attention of the nomen on the far side of the river till he reached the shelter of the woods.

They were outside the city wall now, on a steep bank that overlooked the River Wye to the east, the moat to the south. He hoped Raj Ahten didn't have soldiers posted in these woods.

He took his time as he led Rowan deeper into the grove, careful not to snap a twig.

Up on the hills behind him, in the heart of Castle Sylvarresta, he could hear distant cries of dismay, shouts. Perhaps a battle had broken out.

Other shouts nearby mingled with the noise, cries of hunters, shouting in Taifan, "Go that way! Look over there! After him!" Raj Ahten's trackers were searching on the other side of the city wall.

Gaborn crept down a steep ridge, keeping to the trees, till he and Rowan nearly reached the river.

There he studied the far banks from the deep shadows.

On the hill behind, a fire had begun raging. He smelled smoke. Binnesman's garden was ablaze. The flames looked like the lights thrown by a fiery sunrise.

Gaborn spotted giants on the far bank of the river, hoary things with shaggy manes. The blaze reflected in their silver eyes. Nomen prowled among them, naked. Shades, who shielded their eyes from the conflagration.

The river looked shallow. Though autumn was on its way, little rain had fallen in the past few weeks. Gaborn feared that no matter how far he dove beneath the water, the nomen would see him. But it looked as if the whole city might burst into flame, and for the moment the nomen were somewhat blinded.

Gaborn hugged the shadows. He pointed out twigs for Rowan to avoid with each step.

He heard a branch snap. He spun, drew his saber. One of Raj Ahten's hunters stood on the ridge above, half-hidden by trees, framed by firelight from the wizard's burning garden.

The man didn't rush Gaborn and Rowan, only stood silently, trusting to the night to hide him. Rowan stopped at the sound, looked uphill. She apparently couldn't see the fellow.

He wore a dark robe, and held a naked sword, with a lacquered leather vest for armor. Only the eyebright Binnesman had given Gaborn let him spot the hunter.

Gaborn didn't know what endowments the man might have, how strong or swift he might be. But the hunter would be equally wary of Gaborn's attributes.

Gaborn let his gaze flicker past the hunter, searched the woods to the man's right, as if he hadn't spotted him. After a long moment, Gaborn turned his back, watched the far bank.

He set his bundle of forcibles on the ground, then pretended to scratch himself and drew the dagger from his belt with his left hand. He held the haft in his grip, the blade flat against his wrist, so that it remained concealed.

Then he just listened. The mill wheel made a noise like the rumble of rocks sliding down a slope, and Gaborn could hear distant shouts, perhaps the sound of folks fighting a fire in the city. "Let's wait here," Gaborn told Rowan.

He stilled his breathing as the hunter drew closer.

Stealthy, a stealthy man, but quick. The man had an endowment of metabolism.

Gaborn had no extra metabolism. He moved with the speed of youth, but he was no match for a force warrior.

Gaborn couldn't risk letting the man cry an alarm, attract the attention of the nomen.

He waited till the hunter drew close, twenty feet. A twig crunched softly. Gaborn pretended not to hear. Waited half a second.

He waited until he judged that the hunter would be gazing at his feet, concentrating on not making another sound; then Gaborn spun and leapt past Rowan.

The hunter raised his sword so fast it blurred. He took a ready stance--knees bent, swordpoint forward. Gaborn was outmatched in speed. But not in cunning.

He flicked his dagger from ten feet, and its pommel hit the man's nose. In that split second, when the hunter was distracted, Gaborn lunged, aimed a devastating blow at the hunter's knee, slicing his patella.

The hunter countered by dropping the tip of his sword, trying too late to parry. On the backstroke Gaborn whipped his blade up, slashing the warrior's throat.

The hunter lunged, not yet realizing he was dead. Gaborn twisted away from the blade, felt it graze the left side of his rib cage. Fire blossomed there, and Gaborn swept aside the warrior's sword with his own, danced back.

Gurgling escaped the hunter's throat, and he staggered forward a step. Blood spurted from his neck, a fountain that gushed in time with the warrior's heartbeat.

Gaborn knew the man couldn't live much longer, tried to back away, afraid of taking another wound. He tripped over a root and fell on the ground, his sword tip still held high to parry any attacks.

As the hunter's brain drained of blood, he began to lose his sight, looked around dumbly for half a second. He grasped at a sapling and missed, dropped his sword and fell forward.

Gaborn watched the ridge above. He could see no more of Raj Ahten's hunters. Silently he thanked Binnesman for the spices that masked his scent.

Gaborn felt his ribs. They bled, but not badly, not as bad as he had feared. He stanched the blood, then retrieved his forcibles.

Rowan was panting in fear. She studied him in the darkness as he climbed back down toward her, as if terrified that his wound would kill him.

He stood a little straighter, trying to calm her, then led her down the steep bank to the river's edge and they hid among the pussy willows. The fires burned brighter.

The nomen were poised high on the far bank, looking anxiously in his direction. They had heard the ringing swords, but so long as the fire blinded them, so long as Gaborn and Rowan hid in the shadows, the nomen searched in vain. Perhaps the sound of the mill wheel upriver confused them; perhaps they were not sure if a fight had been fought in the woods. None seemed desirous to brave the river, to fight half-blind. Gaborn recalled vaguely that nomen feared the water.

Wading among pussy willows into water up to his waist, Gaborn looked downstream.

Three Frowth giants stood knee-deep in the water at the river's bend. One held a fiery brand aloft, while the other two held their huge oak rods poised like spears. They peered into the water like fishermen waiting for someone to try to escape.

The firelight that blinded the nomen would only help the giants to see better. For a moment Gaborn studied them. The water downstream could not be more than three feet deep. There was no way that he and Rowan could make it past the giants.

Rowan suddenly gasped in pain and doubled over, clutching her stomach.