Windwalker (39 page)

In one smooth movement Liriel snatched it from the air and sent it spinning back toward the male. It slammed into his throat. His mouth moved around a drow curse, but only blood emerged. As the light faded from his eyes, he lifted one hand and in silent drow cant jerked out the curse he could not speak:

Lolth take you.

A shiver went through Liriel. She tossed her head, shaking it off, and looked for the elf, but Sharlarra was already off. She ran like a deer, weaving among the roiling throng with a small, hooked knife in one hand and a sword in the other. Wherever she went, hamstrung zombies toppled and fell.

Over the sound of battle came a terrible sound, a keening wail that would have given pause to a banshee. The cry grew in power, taking on the harsh, irregular rhythm of a drow chant. It was like no song Liriel had ever heard, but she recognized the power of a deathsinger’s magic.

Dozens of zombies that had been reduced to a crawl by Sharlarra’s knife stood up and resumed their advance. Those that had been cut apart by Rashemi swords retrieved their limbs—or someone else’s—and pressed them back into place. They came on, moving inexorably toward the place where the witches stood.

Geysers of steam burst from the soil in the midst of that orderly advance. The rock itself stirred, flowing upward into a roughly human form—or at least the top half. A crudely hewn head, massive chest, and long, thick arms rose from the stone. A rocky fist hurled forward and shattered a zombie skull. Other, similar constructs took shape, and soon a score of stone warriors battered the advancing army.

A shout of triumph rose from the Rashemi warriors, greeting the appearance of the rock elementals.

Liriel could still hear the deathsinger’s chant. So, apparently, could the zombies. They rose, and healed, and came on. Deathsingers did not just celebrate death: they commanded it!

Liriel looked around for the source of the song. On a nearby ledge stood a male drow, flanked by two fighters. His many braids swung this way and that as he swayed in time to his own chant. A large ruby gleamed in his forehead like a third eye.

On impulse, Liriel reached for the Windwalker and called forth the powerful spell stored there—a spell that required as its material component a large and valuable gem.

The deathsinger’s wail rose to a shriek of mortal agony. He clawed at his head, raking furrows in his own flesh. Suddenly he went rigid, and his form began to expand like that of a berserker entering frenzy.

The drow exploded in a spray of gore, shattering from within. A large ruby statue stood in his place. The golem backhanded one of the guardian drow and seized the sword hand of the second. It casually threw the dark elf from the ledge and made its descent with a crashing leap. The golem waded into the zombie throng, pushing them back toward the land-bound rock elementals.

Fyodor saw this from where he stood and fought, and a faint smile touched his face. It was well that Liriel had not promised to refrain from raising golems.

He caught her eye and raised his sword in a quick salute. She gave him a brilliant, fierce smile and continued fighting her way toward the witches.

From the vantage of a nearby cave, Gorlist watched the course of the battle. Jerking himself back from the sight, he paced and snarled like a caged cat. He slammed a hand into the stone wall, ignoring the blood that flowed from his torn knuckles.

“Damn her!” he snarled. “Damn her to the deepest depths of the Abyss!” Foam flecked his pale lips, and Shakti, watching him closely, realized that his mind had slipped the last leashes of sanity.

Gorlist drew his sword, preparing to leap into the combat. Shakti started forward.

“No! Wait! Wait for—”

Her words were cut off as something hard slammed into the back of her head. Her red eyes glazed and rolled up.

Thorn stepped from the shadows and shoved the stunned priestess aside. Shakti hit the wall hard and slid down to the damp stone floor.

“Now,” snapped the elf fighter, “let’s continue the discussion we were having earlier.”

Liriel raced toward one of the elementals. The stone guardian began to shiver, vibrating faster and faster. The drow took refuge behind a rock just as the creatures shattered. Shards of rock soared over the battlefield as if they had been shot from a tre-buchet, arching toward the witches. The women met them with a single soprano shout. Stone clattered against an invisible wall and slid down to form a rough stone wall around their position.

Liriel scrambled to her feet, staring in disbelief at the place where the elemental had stood. She knew that spell! She had studied it as a girl with the Shobolar wizards. A relatively simple spell, it was the sort of thing that one of Triel’s warriors might know.

She glanced toward the eastern sky. The crimson rim of the sun edged over the mountains, turning the snowy peaks into a silent tribute to the night-spilled blood. Day had come, and yet the drow fought on undeterred, and their magic still held.

Drow magic on the surface. This wasn’t possible!

Oh, but it is, my little Windwalker.

The drow stopped dead. She knew that voice, though she had heard it only once before, mockingly repeating Fyodor’s words, a wolf is always a wolf.

Her hand went to the Windwalker amulet, the magical trinket that allowed her to bring her magic to the surface.

Yours? taunted the beautiful voice. Perhaps you forget that what was ‘yours’ was first mine.

A terrible possibility began to burn into Liriel’s mind. “No,” she whispered.

Oh, yes. The amulet is more powerful than you dreamed. It can hold the power of this land, and the spirits who act in league with these witches. The spirits are scattered, sundered. Yield to me, as you did before, and we will command them with a single voice!

Even as Liriel shook her head in vehement denial, she knew what must be done. Once before she had called a wandering spirit into the Windwalker and sent it safely home. In doing so, she had healed Fyodor of his uncontrolled rages. If the amulet was truly that powerful, could she do this on a greater scale?

And more important, could she keep such power from Lolth’s hands?

She ran toward the witches and vaulted over the tumbled stone wall. Two groups of six stood in linked spellcasting, commanding airborne whips that lashed at Triel’s forces. Zofia stood between the two groups, directing their efforts.

Liriel hurried to the old witch, holding out the Windwalker. “What one witch knows is known to all. You said that I would bind and break, heal and destroy. Help me!”

The witch took Liriel’s small black hand without hesitation. “One circle,” she said, reached her free hand out toward her friend Wanja.

The hathran gripped the old woman’s hand in her own. One after another, the witches joined hands. The circle went around and stopped with Anya. The young witch hesitated only a moment before she reached her hand out to the drow.

The moment their fingers touched a surge of power went through Liriel, a magic as great as any she had known under Lolth’s sway. She opened her mind to the Windwalker and the drow magic stored within.

A frigid wind buffeted her, whipping her hair around her and chilling her until she felt certain her skin must be a gray as a bheur’s. None of the witches was touched by the storm. All its fury was focused on Liriel as the goddess tried to claim her and take for herself this power.

This land.

But Liriel was not alone. The will and power of the witches lent their strength to hers. Their collective will thrust the goddess aside, as a circle of lamplight pushes back the darkness.

Liriel shook off the debilitating chill and formed in her mind an image of Yggdrasil’s Child, the mythic tree whose roots ran deep, whose branches were broad enough to encompass all life.

There was magic deep in the bones and marrow of this world, magic she knew well. She reached down to it, strengthening the ties she had inadvertently created when she carved her own destiny on the Ruathym oak.

Next Liriel reached for the heart of Fyodor’s homeland. The song of Rashemen began as a whisper, swelling to a mighty chorus that filled her mind with its powerful cadences. She saw the recognition on the faces of the witches, and the wonder. For the first time these women heard the song of the land they served.

A small whispery soprano took up the melody. Liriel’s gaze went to the singer and linked to Anya’s awestuck eyes. The young witch squeezed her hand, and her heart—as open to Liriel’s gaze as her own—welcomed her one sister to another.

Other witches joined in the song. Still in a handclasped circle, they began to dance, and the ancient spellcasting they had learned as maidens kept perfect time to the song.

The waning moon had not yet set despite the coming of day. Using the magic that Qilué had taught her, Liriel reached out into the moonlight, listening for the song that was unique to each place. A silvery glow surrounded her as she reached out with the moonmagic of the Dark Maiden. She heard the song that was Ysolde, daughter of Qilué, and the priestesses with her. To her surprise, they were very close. Liriel reached out into the forests and sent out a silent summons.

The winding of a hunting horn rang out from the wooded slope and bounded from mountain to mountain. The remnants of Gorlist’s band fought with renewed ferocity.

Silver arrows streaked down from nearby trees, and a ringing chorus of female voices rang above the sounds of battle. Ysolde ran down the slopes with her sword held high. Behind her raced several of her maidens, all lofting bright swords and emitted the eerie, ululating cry. Their hair shone silver-bright in the dawning day.

“More of the demons coming!” roared Treviel, pointing with bloodied sword toward Ysolde’s band.

Fyodor seized the fyrra’s shoulders and spun him about. The older man went rigid with shock at the sight before him. A drow danced among the circle of spellcasting witches.

“That dance is a summons to the guardians of the land. This— this!—is what Mother Rashemen sends?” Treviel murmured.

“Tell the men not to attack any of the silver-haired drow women. Tell them!”

The fyrra hesitated. This advice went against everything he knew as truth or even sanity. Yet he could not deny what his eyes told him.

“This drow is truly wychlaran?” he asked.

“That and more,” Fyodor said softly.

He looked toward his dearest friend, her small hands entwined with the pale fingers of Rashemaar witches, her eyes fixed upon things he could not see, and a vision of his own came to him. Through the Sight that was his heritage he glimpsed a golden-eyed raven— the spirit form of the girl his destiny and heart had chosen.

The raven-spirit sent forth a call, a mighty summons as familiar to Fyodor as the sound of his sister’s voice. He felt the power of that summons, for once his own wandering spirit had followed it to the Windwalker. He was not at all surprised when the ghosts that haunted the edge of his vision stirred and moved toward the raven’s call. He did not marvel when spirits rose from the trees and rocks and waters to join in the powerful spell of binding.

“She is wychlaran and more,” he repeated firmly. “She is the Windwalker.”

“You’re Zofia’s kinsman,” Treviel said, accepting Fyodor’s vision. He lifted his voice and began to roar out the song that sped the berserker transformation. Here and there the warriors took up the ritual.

The entranced drow heard the familiar song and drew it into the dancing circle. Fyodor’s quest had been tied to the Windwalker, and echoes of his own spirit journey lingered in the mighty artifact.

The witches took up the song that was begun on Ruathym, when Fyodor unleashed the hamfarrig magic within, and the seagoing fighters of Ruathym became once again the legendary wolves of the waves.

Power flowed from the witches into the singing berserkers. The rage came over them swiftly. Fyodor was the first to throw down his sword and rear up on two strong, black-furred legs. A blue-eyed bear roared into the thick of battle, tossing aside zombies and living drow alike with swipes of his massive paws. Petyar changed, and a long-limbed brown bear galloped toward a beleaguered Rashemi. The clatter of Rashemaar swords against stone echoed through the clearing as one after another the men dropped their weapons and took on their true berserker forms. Before long every man of the Black Bear lodge fought with the form and fury of his totem animal.

In some corner of her mind, Liriel was aware of Sharlarra darting through the battlefield, collecting the discarded weapons. These she took to the edge of the battlefield where grim-faced women took up swords their husbands and brothers had dropped, and children stood waiting to leave childhood behind forever. The elf handed out the weapons, and all Rashemi who could hold a blade went to fight beside their berserkers.

The drow reached out to Thorn, felt the powerful dual nature of the elf-wolf—and a depth of pain she would not have thought the stoic hunter capable of feeling. A lone voice, a wolf’s plaintive howl, rose to the moon in unwilling solo. With all her heart, with all her being, the exiled hunter longed for a pack.

Liriel brought to mind the sundering of the tapestry and the healing circle of ravens that had guided the spirits of the captive elves home. Little raven, she thought. Fyodor had named her well. Following the example of her namesakes in this world and the one beyond, Liriel called the wolves.

With one voice, the witches and drow sent Thorn’s plaintive wolf-song out into the surrounding mountains. Lithe, silvery creatures slipped from the forest as the lythari came to battle. Thorn’s people, if just for this one time, would fight with her as a pack.

Packs of natural wolves came as well. With intelligence remarkable for forest creatures, they fell upon fallen zombies, dragging them toward the ravine.

A booming crackle came from the forest, and the thud of titanic steps. Cries of mingled fear and triumph rose from the villagers as a fifty-foot monster burst from the trees. Feet the size of hillocks slammed down as it stomped the zombie army, crushing the undead creatures into the soil. The wood man, legendary protector of Rashemen, had answered the song. The battle was over, and the surviving drow fled into the forest.