The web of wizardry (33 page)

His anger and bitterness of the night before brought hurtful memories. He knew now that he had been bewitched—as the men on the walls had been! Danaer ran through the streets, ruing every word he had spoken when he and Lira last parted.

As he rounded a corner, he came upon a Markuand mounted on a Destre roan, pursuing a merchant's family. The civilians huddled in their cart and whipped their pony, but it was obvious they could not escape their well-armed foe. Danaer leaned back into the shadows until the Markuand drew abreast of his position. Then he shouted a command to the roan, and the horse came to a sharp stop, spilling its rider across its neck and half out of the saddle. Danaer struck before the Markuand could regain his balance, shoving the body off and claiming the mount for his own.

The civilians had been looking back fearfully, and now they waved their gratitude and called, "Argan favor you!"

"Argan favor us all!" Danaer kicked up the horse, riding hard toward the command center.

The building appeared deserted from without, but as Danaer galloped in through the open doors he was barely quick enough to dodge a bench thrown past his head. Yistar and several of his aides were sword to sword with their equal in number of Markuand. Danaer used his roan to advantage to help them. The Markuand were younger than those who had come

against the walls. Were their generals now conscripting children to fill the ranks? Unblooded and inexperienced, they fell without much of a fight.

"Watch at the door, Aseyi. Make sure we are not surprised again," Yistar ordered one of his aides. The man went to keep lookout as Danaer jumped down from the roan. "Have you heard?"

"I ... I was at an inn, Captain. Do you want me to report to the walls?"

Yistar was gulping for breath. "By the Black Mare's Mane, no! That is hopeless. We are forced to withdraw from Deki at once. Your units are already gone. Luckily Ti-Mori is safely away, and Qhorda as well. And they broke through at the bluffs now, Gordyan says. We cannot save Deki with twice the troops we have. The Siim has been slain. Branra is getting the wounded away, gathering what is left us in the Square of the Ryerdon. Gordyan is there, too, trying to keep the Dekans from killing us as we retreat." The ofiicer paused, then said with rage, "The Markuand knew everything! Every guard post! Every weakness in the walls!"

"My informant said magic ..."

"Ai! And Lady Nalu says that apparition was indeed a witch from The Interior, the traitor her Web has been seeking."

"Betrayed by an lit," Danaer muttered. "And now they conspire with Markuand, the Royal Commander's enemies in the capital."

"Rightly do the Azsed take vengeance on us. They will not forget who cost them Deki, and, by the gods, The Interior had best not! We fought well here, together, and then to be defeated by . . ." Yistar spat at the corpse of a Markuand. "We must hold here a trifle longer. Liyur, feed those papers in the fire at once. All of them. Nothing must give the enemy help. We will stall them until Branra gets our wounded to safety." He grinned at Danaer. "That devil-ecar. He wanted to stay here and kill more - Markuand. But I sent him to cover the retreat. He has risked his blood enough already."

"Branraediir of the Bloody Sword, indeed. A warrior unequaled, save by Straedanfi."

"Bah! In two lifetimes I could not match that firebrand." But Yistar's eyes twinkled at the compliment. "We want him alive for the battles to come, though."

"Lira?" Danaer could contain his anxiety no longer.

"Upstairs, engaged in some sorkra business. Go fetch her. I tried to argue that she had run out of time, but I have no wit to deal with a wizard woman. Mayhap she will hsten to you. Go!"

"They come again, Captain!" the lookout warned. Danaer hefted his sword, then was stunned as a woman's scream rang down the stairway.

Danaer took the steps at a run, in time to catch a Markuand climbing through a window at the top. He cut down the man, then hurried toward Lira's room.

As he flung aside the curtain at the door, Danaer's apprehension turned to fury. A Markuand struggled with Lira. Her face was contorted with distracted terror, a kind of half awareness of what was occurring. She was in a sorkra trance, and this brute had attacked her when she was thus helpless!

Danaer lunged forward, and the Markuand swung Lira around, using her as a shield. Lira thrashed in his arms, and Danaer called to her to be still, fearing she would goad the man to kill her. She could not hear him, transfixed in her wizardry. She was moaning, in a manner all too familiar. Danaer fought his dread, concentrating on what must be done.

The tip of his blade touched the slender sword of the Markuand. It was a testing, and this was no inexperienced youngster. This man knew how to handle a weapon, and his eyes were not so dull as many of his race Danaer had met in combat. The Markuand sensed Danaer's concern for Lira and kept her between them.

"Hear me, come to me," Lira keened, and the Markuand glanced at her uneasily. Danaer pressed the flat of his sword against the enemy's, trying to force the edge away from Lira.

The obsidian talisman began to thrill against his breast, strength flowing into sinew and bone, making him a living weapon of sorcery. The walls cracked with

ice, and wind and an ominous darkness swept in upon them.

Danaer's sword was locked with the Markuand's. A brain-numbing singsong filled their ears. Danaer could neither move nor speak, but the Markuand could, and lifted his weapon. There was a wildness in his expression, and then he too was held motionless, his arm arrested as he prepared to bring down a death stroke.

The world was transformed. Danaer had felt too often the pervasive touch of magic which took him in as part of Lira's Web. But this was not the same. There was an awful emptiness, a reaching out with nothing to find.

A tremendous whining exploded among them. Danaer wanted to fling his hands over his ears. The obsidian burned against his skin, as hot as the smoking mountain which had given it birth.

A dot of light appeared in the cold darkness, resting lightly upon Lira's forehead. The blackness gathered, plunging the three of them into the totality of a starless, moonless night. Danaer's stomach heaved in rebellion as he knew a horde of entities—there and not there, human and inhuman, people and things Lira called to in her desperation.

Trapped amid strange voices and darkness, Danaer could somehow see Lira and the Markuand, their forms bright and dancing in the inky blackness. The Markuand's sword ghttered as if lit from within by some supernatural force. Danaer marshaled his will against the man and the weapon and against all Markuand. He could not move, but he thrust with his mind, yearning to help Lira and free them from this menace.

Then, for the first time, Danaer heard a Markuand scream—a wordless shriek of utter despair.

Lira was rigid, only her lips moving, and before Danaer's startled gaze the Markuand began to . . . fall?

But no! He was upright, not falling. He was shrinking, receding from Danaer and Lira with great rapidity, dwindling in size, and screaming as he shrank. His voice, like his body, closed in upon itself, becoming

ever smaller and smaller. Ice ran through Danaer's vems.

A small hand pressed his, the shock of human warmth reaching mto his soul. Suddenly the cold and darkness were gone, like a burst bubble. Lira fell into Danaer's arms, and he discovered with immense relief that he could move those arms. She clung to him, shuddering violently. They were alone. The Markuand and the strange presences and the blackness and cold were gone.

"Oh, qedra, you . . . you were almost caught with him. If that had happened . . ." Lira broke off with a racking sob.

Finding his wits with difficulty, Danaer asked, "Where... is he?"

Lira's eyes were haunted. "He is trapped in the Web. Forever."

"Dead?" That, at least, was something Danaer could understand.

"No, not dead." Lira refused to speak more of this thing she had done with her sorkra talents. "The witch ... the traitor . . . she who walked the walls and blinded men to her master's evil assassins . . ." Lira shuddered again, but now there was anger mixed with her fear. "She sent this Markuand to kill me. She wants me dead. And last night she countered my powers, almost destroyed me, with ... with you."

Reluctantly he said, "She may have guided him, but he got into the building through a window. And we must get away before more of his kind come."

Danaer swept her into the protection of his arm, leading her out to the hall, looking warily to left and right. The corridor and the window were empty, and he steered Lira toward the stairs. Halfway down, they stopped. A clash and din of fighting rose from below, and then a Markuand ran up toward them, a dripping sword in hand. Danaer caught him by surprise, then pulled Lira out of the way of the body. They descended to the main room—into a scene of carnage. One man still stood amid the bodies, a Markuand, his sword bloody as he bent over Yistar.

Danaer was upon him before the enemy warrior

could react. It was only when Lira shouted him back to sanity that Danaer realized he had been striking the dead man over and over, butchering the remains.

He knelt and lifted Yistar's head. The officer's eyes were already partially glazed, and a spreading wetness covered Danaer's hand where he cradled Yistar's shoulders. The Captain still held his sword. Plainly he had been engaged with one of the enemy when another had struck him down from behind. It seemed a cruel twist of fate for Straedanfi, who had always come fearlessly at his foes. Danaer's throat thickened with grief.

Yistar blinked up at him. "Danaer? Ai, my Azsed." He gripped the scout's wrist. His voice was slurred and had an overstrong Nyald accent Danaer had not heard Yistar use in years. "The snake," he moaned, "that filthy, Bog'-cursed winged snake ...!"

"It is gone," Danaer humored him gently, not arguing with his delirium.

"Great white wings mingled with scales and feathers, with talons and dripping fangs like ... like ..."

"It fled from your sword, Captain. You have vanquished it."

"Distracted me, and then . . ." Yistar was angered by his defeat, but growing too weak to cling to the thought. His gaze brightened. "Branra. Get to Branra. He will need good men more than ever now."

"I will. And this is but one battle. The war will be ours, Captain." Then Danaer sensed the man could not hear him, would never hear him again. He pried loose the fingers from his wrist and eased the body down, closing the dead eyes.

He put away his sorrow, thinking what must be done. The roan he had taken from the Markuand waited beside the door, restlessly pawing the floorboards. Indeed, it had been wise to bring the beast into the building, Destre fashion, to guard against theft. Branra. Yistar had said to get to Branra, and where had he said Branra would be? The Square of the Ryerdon . ..

"Forgive me," Lira sobbed over Yistar's body. "I was too frail, and they are so powerful. I have lost Deki for you ..."

"You were outnumbered, as we all were," Danaer consoled her. He caught Lira about the waist and lifted her onto the roan, then jumped up behind her.

"We cannot leave him hke this!" Lira cried.

Danaer spurred the roan through the door. "I too wish to give Straedanfi a proper pyre, but the living need me more, you most of all." He put his riding skills to hard use, wending through the dangerous streets. Again and again he had to turn the roan into alleyways and filthy passages to hide from roving bands of mounted Markuand and some of Deki's own worst element, who used Deki's disaster as an excuse to slit throats and rob. Neither the Markuand nor the gutter sweepings seemed to have much of a plan, roaming and slaughtering at will. Danaer knew he might hope for a quick end if they were caught, but Lira would not fare so well. That grim knowledge made him the more determined to win free to the western gate.

Once he rode through a dank tunnel between structures and was forced to draw the roan to a sudden halt and mask its nostrils with his hand. Lira sucked in her breath, staring out into the sunlit square beyond their shadowed place as several Destre-Y rode by. Unlike many of the cutthroats in Destre garb, these were familiar, and Danaer bit his Up to keep from roaring out a name—and a challenge to fight to the death.

Hablit! The former chieftain of Vidik and his loyal followers prowled Deki's streets, roistering, grinning maliciously, celebrating the collapse of the city—and of the alliance between Gordt te Raa and the Royal Conmiander. Hablit had won his revenge and delighted in the bloodshed it brought.

Yet Danaer could not risk confronting him. With Lira in his keeping, it was foolhardy and pointless, a throwing away of their lives. He could not hope to reach Hablit before the others would cut him down. He could only watch until they had passed, and swear that he would take his own vengeance in the days to come, with the death of Yistar and many others repaid double.

Like animals or criminals, he and Lira moved in the half darkness cast by eaves and looming buildings,

creeping through the streets, always turning west. Lira had mastered her grief now and was as a warrior's woman must be, silent and brave. Without asking, Danaer knew she was regaining her sorkra strength after the ordeal with the Markuand and the Captain's death.

Finally, ahead lay the Square of the Ryerdon, the first intersection Yistar's troops had crossed when they had come to Deki. Danaer patted the roan's neck and praised its sturdiness in bringing them safely here. It was a good mount, and he regretted that some Destre had been slain by a Markuand and his well-trained horse made plunder. But through that, Danaer and Lira had come to the place of meeting, near the gates.

Wagons were gathered in the square's center, and litters with wounded were being put into them. A last few ranks of soldiers were forming up and departing as rapidly as their Troop Leaders could make any order of the situation. Branra and Gordyan were directing this escape, their troops and warriors working together. Gordyan was sending his men off west to the gates with the wagons even as Danaer and Lira rode into the intersection.