Wizardborn (38 page)

She was learning the reavers' language, seeing as a reaver saw. The memories seemed not so much a tangle as they did intermittent journeys through the eyes of another.

Yet Averan felt a pang of despair as the visions began. After spending a long morning looking for the Waymaker, Averan had succeeded in eating a farmer.

So she began to think that her despair was the cause of her pains when they first began.

Gaborn had her ride his horse, his gauntleted hand wrapped protectively around her belly. Her stomach was full, cramping, as it seemed to do every time that she ate a reaver.

Gaborn's men closed in on Mangan's Rock, and he ordered various sentries and lords to form a picket all around the rock, to keep the reavers from escaping. But he kept his main force to the west, so that the prevailing wind would continue to blow their scent toward the horde.

He ordered his carters to go to Ballyton and return with
supplies for a siege, and then he rode with Averan to a small brook a mile west of the rock.

The brook wound slowly through the grasslands. Cattails and willow grew thick on its banks, and a herd of deer bounded from the brush as the lords approached.

Gaborn took her to an oak tree. Averan brushed away the acorns on the ground and sat in the shade.

Iome sat beside her, wiped some sweat from Averan's face, and whispered, “You don't look well.”

“I don't feel good,” Averan admitted.

“Just sit here, little one,” Iome offered, taking her hand. “I'll take care of you.”

Averan looked up into Iome's face. The queen was watching her intently, full of concern.

She doesn't know me, Averan thought. She couldn't care about me. But Iome's expression informed her otherwise. Some people cared more than others did. Some people were born to love others until it hurt.

The wizard Binnesman cleared the ground nearby, dragging away tree limbs. One of Gaborn's captains, a grizzled old man with a scarred face, gave the green woman a staff. He taught her how to grip it, then began teaching her some basic combat stances and maneuvers—jabs, thrusts, and sweeps. Baron Waggit stood by, soon got a staff, and began trying to learn along with the green woman.

Averan watched them to keep her mind off her own problems. But suddenly her heart began to race in terror. Something was going terribly wrong.

“Help me,” Averan begged Iome.

Iome stared hard at Averan. Gaborn's queen was a small woman, half Indhopalese. It was impossible to look at her and not to notice the penetrating eyes so brown that they were almost black, reflecting the light. In size and build, she was much like Saffira.

“Jureem,” Iome begged. “Get the child some water. She looks ill.”

“At once.” Jureem went to the stream to fill a skin.

“What's wrong?” Iome asked.

Averan could hardly explain. At that moment, she was being assailed by a dozen memories at once—lessons in how to transplant a rock plant, how to catch a horn beetle, the chill of racing up the mountains through an icy river, and images of lightning flashing over the battle of Carris. Terror coursed through her in gut-wrenching waves.

“I don't know … I feel like I'm drowning,” Averan said.

“Drowning?” Iome asked.

Averan couldn't explain. Strange fears and cravings coursed through her. She struggled. “Maybe it's the memories. It's all these memories …”

Iome put her hand over Averan's forehead. Sweat rolled off like drops of dew. Jureem returned with the waterskin. Iome placed it to Averan's lips, gave her a cool drink.

Averan's mouth and throat were so dry. She hadn't felt this way before when she'd eaten reavers. Now she drank her fill until her stomach hurt, but the water didn't quench her.

She started to cry.

“It's all right,” Iome said. “You've taken in the memories of three reavers in three days. That must be a lot for a little girl who hasn't even lived her own life yet.”

But Averan shook her head. That wasn't it. Sweat poured off her more fiercely. Her heart was racing, and she took deep breaths. The cramping in the stomach had never hit Averan so hard. She'd never had sweat wring from her before.

She wondered if this reaver had poison in its blood.

“Everyone I know is dying,” Averan said. She didn't dare say that she was afraid that she might die.

“Help me,” Averan begged.

To Averan's surprise, Iome scooted down, wrapped one arm under her neck, the other over Averan's chest. “I'll help you,” Iome whispered. “Whenever you need me, whatever you ask, I'll help you if I can.”

That assurance comforted Averan. She discovered that she craved a human touch.

A burst of memories welled up. Averan cried out.

“Binnesman,” Iome begged. “Can you spare a moment?”

The wizard came to minister to Averan. He had her open her mouth, checked her eyes. “There's nothing wrong that I can see,” Binnesman declared in a mystified tone.

“She's sweating with a fever, and she's shivering in terror,” Iome said.

Binnesman argued, “Feel her head. She has no fever.”

Iome gave him a look that said she thought he must be daft. She checked Averan's sweaty brow, shook her head in consternation.

Binnesman peered at Averan worriedly. He took some herbs from his pocket and treated her symptoms. He warned Iome, “Let me know if she worsens.”

So Averan lay in a torpid state, plagued by strange sensations. Pain cramped her feet and joints; dryness chafed her lungs; the consuming thirst ravaged her. She did her best to ignore the pain. She watched the green woman.

The wylde's trainer put her through her paces. He was obviously astonished at how quickly she learned. Baron Waggit couldn't keep up. The trainer quickly moved from teaching the wylde how to grip the staff and do basic maneuvers into full-body lunges, whirling attacks, spinning parries, and combination moves. “I've taught the staff in the Room of Arms for twenty years,” the big knight said to Binnesman at one point, “and never dreamed of a girl like this. When you're done with her, can I take her to wife?”

Binnesman laughed.

Averan felt jealous. Binnesman was desperate to get the wylde trained, and Averan thought of her as a friend. Averan didn't like what the wizard was doing to the green woman, turning her into a weapon. She didn't like it any more than she liked what Gaborn was making her do.

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In no contest in life does the advantage accrue to the unprepared.

—
Mendellas Val Orden

Gaborn could sense danger rising around Iome. The attack against her was very close.

For a day now, he'd felt it stirring.

He checked the perimeter of his guard. He'd quietly stationed eighty men around the camp. Most of them lounged about—squatting on logs to sharpen axes, or pretending to snooze. A hundred yards away, Sir Borenson and Myrrima made a big show of packing their goods, as if in a hurry to be off for Inkarra, yet, as asked, Borenson let his keen blue eyes stray to the trees along the creek bank, as alert as any five men.

But nothing Gaborn did seemed to allay the threat.

He wandered close to Skalbairn. He'd asked the man to stay near Iome, and the big knight did. But for the moment he had a staff and was sparring with Baron Waggit. It was rough work. Sweat coursed down the baron's face, and soaked though his tunic. He'd ripped a sleeve in his sparring. His blue eyes gleamed with anticipation. He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.

Skalbairn spoke amiably to the baron. “Ah, you should come with me to Internook,” he was saying as the baron tried in vain to bash him with his staff. “It's not so damned civilized. A man like you would do well there, put his past behind him.”

“Keep sharp,” Gaborn whispered to Skalbairn.

“Always,” Skalbairn said under his breath.

Gaborn made one last search of his perimeter, sauntered over toward Iome and Averan, who sat together. Iome's arm was wrapped around the child. Averan's glazed eyes stared inward. The child looked deathly ill. Perspiration poured from her.

Gaborn squatted next to Averan and Iome. “Well?” he asked gently, expectantly. “Any word?”

“It wasn't Waymaker that I ate,” Averan said. “It was only some …”—she searched for the right word—“worm herder.”

Gaborn squinted at her curiously. “Worm herder?”

“Like a shepherd or a farmer, only to worms and other animals,” she said. “I warned you that you're fighting peasants.”

She spoke sincerely, but the reavers were up to something, whether Averan knew it or not.

Could the danger actually come from this child? he wondered.

He didn't want to believe that. Averan was an apprentice Earth Warden after all, dedicated to preserving life. Yet right now he wondered if she wasn't… deranged. He had to test the theory.

“Iome,” Gaborn asked. “Come here for a moment.” He purposely walked a hundred yards from Averan, stood with his back to her. He rested a foot on a lichen-covered stone, saw that there were small holes in the ground around it where mice made their burrows. A cricket sang nearby.

He briefly studied the reavers' movements on the rock.

They'd climbed all over it, and now had begun to work. A couple dozen glue mums began chewing down the great trees at the center of the rock, while blade-bearers pushed over the walls of the ancient towers, sent them cascading from the cliffs in ruins. Gaborn was so busy watching the south face of the cliff that it took him by surprise when he heard a roar on the north face. The great statue of Mangan went tumbling four hundred yards to its ruin.

Danger was rising all around him. The deaths of certain men had come this morning as predicted. Iome's moment was at hand. Tens of thousands in Carris would face their peril tomorrow. After that… the world. When would his enemy make the next strike? Three days? Four?

Gaborn felt desperate. Danger was everywhere. Binnesman had warned him a few days ago that Raj Ahten was not his ultimate enemy. Raj Ahten, the Inkarrans, Lowicker, and Anders—all of them were like masks that concealed some greater peril. There was a mystery here.

Sometimes, he felt that they all worked in concert, perhaps without even knowing it.

Gaborn scanned the fields, searching for any sign of the impending attack.

Iome walked up to his back and whispered, “What's so important that you must drag me away from the girl?”

He didn't know how to answer, exactly. He changed the subject, trying to buy a moment's time, in case the danger presented itself. “It's as if they hate the works of man,” Gaborn said, jutting his chin toward the reavers. “They can leave nothing that we've made intact.”

He reached out with his senses. The jeopardy to Iome was rising explosively. Her proximity to Averan had nothing to do with the danger.

He drew his sword from his sheath, pressed it into Iome's hand. “Take this.”

She held it as if she'd never seen one before. “What's this? You think I'm in danger?”