Wizardborn (55 page)

The forest ended here. A few gray skeletal trees struggled up from fetid pools, but otherwise there was no cover for nearly a quarter of a mile. In midwinter the bog would have been a lake.

So Myrrima slowed her horse and let it pick its way through the water, wading through muddy pools where it sank up to its withers. With every step, the smell of rot rose from the depths, and the splashing of the horse obscured any other sound. Myrrima had to lug her saddlebags on her own shoulder, lest her provisions get wet. Mosquitoes buzzed around her in a starving cloud.

As her horse waded through the pools she saw someone—or something. She happened to glance over her shoulder, checking the road behind, when she glimpsed a horseman on the hill three quarters of a mile back.

A dark, hooded figure sat ahorse under the trees, peering toward her intently. In the gloaming woods, she couldn't see the color of his horse. So well concealed was he that at first she wasn't sure if he was real or simply an unhappy confluence of sticks and shadows, an invention of her fears.

But a moment of squinting through the cloud of mosquitoes convinced her otherwise.

It was a man, hiding in the trees just off the road.

Myrrima swallowed hard, thinking, Assassin? Or the wight of some long-dead wolf hunter?

It could be anyone. Perhaps it was only a fellow traveler who had been frightened to hear a force horse riding through these lone woods, and had decided to exit into the trees.

She haltingly waved at the fellow in greeting. But he didn't move. He held as still as a deer as it tastes the air for the scent of the hounds.

“Who are you waving at?” Borenson hissed.

“There's a man in the trees,” Myrrima said.

“Are you sure it's a man?”

She suddenly realized that she hadn't seen fresh-cut tracks in the road. Nor had she smelled warm horseflesh along the trail either. Which meant that the fellow had not been ahead of them on the road.

That left only two possibilities. He might have been riding cross-country through the bogs—something only a madman would try—or he might be following them.

Only a man on a fast force horse could have kept up.

Muyyatin assassins rode force horses.

She reined in her mount, and sat for a moment, braving the mosquitoes, pointedly staring at the fellow. At last he turned his head and urged his horse forward, onto the road, spurred it north into the shadowed woods, and was gone.

His horse made no sound as it trotted through the trees.

“I saw him,” Borenson whispered. “Can't tell if he's alive or dead.”

A wight, she decided, one that has no interest in us. Or
perhaps it was still too light yet, and he would come after them in the full darkness.

Her heart was pounding. She suddenly recalled a tale of Muyyatin assassins who booted the hooves of their horses with layers of lamb's wool, so that they could ride quietly.

“Water and cold iron can sometimes turn a wight,” Borenson whispered. “But if that fellow is alive, just give him cold iron.”

Myrrima reached into a pouch, pulled out an iron spear tip that Hoswell had once showed her. It had a flaring blade, and fit nicely onto the end of her steel bow. She twisted it in place.

She spurred her horse through the fetid swamp, and rode on for five miles. The woods grew darker as night thickened, and in many places the roots of huge trees snaked out into the road, creating a hazard for any who dared ride at night.

A dim haze covered the sky, muting the stars, and Borenson convinced her to abandon their journey for a while as they waited for moonrise.

They reached a dark copse on a hillside, where the roots were especially thick, and turned off the road. They led their mounts into blackness under the trees. Myrrima's horse lowered its head, then sniffed at molding leaves as it sought forage. She'd ridden far, and the mount had got nothing to eat for the past two hours. It whickered in consternation.

“Quiet,” Myrrima whispered. The beast had endowments of wit from other horses, and was well trained. It suddenly went still as a statue, ignoring even the mosquitoes that eagerly settled on its rump.

For long minutes, Myrrima and Borenson waited.

She hated the silence, wished that they could speak. She occupied herself by watching the heavens. Almost immediately a trio of shooting stars arced across the sky. One was a fireball that left a guttering trail of ash. She'd seldom seen such a display. No crickets chirped. No frogs croaked.

The night seemed perfectly still.

Until a wailing cry arose that was like nothing human. Goosepimples formed on her arms immediately, and the sound sent a shiver down her spine. Her horse pawed the ground nervously, and Borenson's danced forward.

On a windswept hillside not a mile away, she saw the gray ghost light of a wight—incredibly thin and tall. At first glance, it seemed vaguely human in shape, until one made out its impossible form. Its gangling arms were as thin as branches, a crepuscular white in color, like a warty fungal growth, that ended in scythelike talons. Its four legs were also inhumanly long and slender. The rearmost legs were attached to flaring hips that tilted up like a grasshoppers', with an inverted knee. But the rear hips were set no more than two feet from the forelegs, so that it squatted oddly. Its narrow skull tapered so that the protracted muzzle looked almost like a bill. The flaring at the back of the skull was not from bone, but from philia.

Though from a great distance one could almost mistake it for a human in shape, the beast was far more closely related to a reaver than a human.

A Toth.

Myrrima's heart hammered in her throat. Sweat spilled down her forehead. She dared not move, lest she attract its attention.

The Toth enchanters from beyond the Carroll Sea were all but legend now, and most of their specters had faded. This could only be the shade of a powerful sorcerer.

Water and cold iron wouldn't be enough to ward it. Only a great wizard might drive the monster away.

The wight stood upon the hillside, its head tilted upward, as if it were a hound tasting the air. As it did, the philia hanging like a thick beard beneath its long jaws quivered. It swayed on its legs, an incredibly graceful gesture, then went striding northwest with a determined gait.

He's caught the scent of something, Myrrima realized. And given that I'm riding from the north, it could be me.

She was about to leap on her horse when Borenson stopped her.

Almost immediately she heard hoofbeats. A rider came galloping along the road behind them, whipping his mount with his reins.

A heavy warhorse charged past, its cloaked rider hunched low in the saddle, wheezing in terror. She heard the muted
ching
of studded mail. Even the heavy sheepskin slippers that quieted the horse's pounding hooves couldn't silence it completely.

Muyyatin. And the wight was after the assassin.

The only problem was, she was hiding in these woods too. The wight wouldn't care who it caught first.

Which do you want to risk, she asked herself, Death from an assassin, or death from the wight of a Toth?

Borenson decided for her. He gouged his horse's flanks with his heels and was gone.

Myrrima reined her mount around. She kicked his flanks harder than she'd wanted, and the stallion lurched beneath her in a dead run.

It was nearly all that she could do to hang on. She grabbed her steel bow anyway, hoping against hope that its iron spear tip might keep the wight at bay.

The force horse galloped under the trees. Behind her, a quarter mile back, Myrrima heard that inhuman cry. It was not a wail of sorrow, but more of an ululating shriek, like the sound an eagle makes as it stoops for the kill.

Her force horse redoubled its speed in blind panic, and Myrrima bent low in the saddle, clinging tightly. Borenson's mount set the pace ahead. His robes flapped behind him.

She came up on a strait where the trees thinned. She spared a glance backward.

Her blood froze in her veins. The wight was leaping toward her on incredibly long legs. It glowed with its own inner light so that she could see it clearly now, only a couple hundred yards behind. Its skin shone pale as polished ivory, and its huge eyes glowed a deep, deep crimson. Upon its arms, faint blue runes burned, ancient wards against death. Philia swayed from its narrow chin like a beard, and
scythelike teeth glimmered in its lipless mouth. It made grasping motions with its right paw, as if grabbing for her. Its paws were incredibly long, each with three talons that had many joints.

“Fly!” she shouted at her mount, and the force horse redoubled its effort again, shooting through the shadowed copses, leaving the wight to flounder in its wake. Her beast had four endowments of metabolism, and two of brawn. With those endowments it could attain incredible speeds. Given the choice, she'd not have dared a run like this even in daylight.

Myrrima suspected that she was racing at eighty miles an hour when she heard Borenson's horse stumble.

He was galloping through a copse ahead when its fore-hoof clipped a root with a report like a lance shattering.

As the beast floundered, Myrrima's first thought was for her husband.

He's as good as dead, she thought. Yet she saw Borenson jump or fall free of the saddle, roll to the grass.

Myrrima reined her own mount, leapt from her saddle while the horse continued to run. She tried to land on her feet, but they slipped from beneath her on the slick road and she fell on her right hip. She skidded over some roots or rocks, then flipped onto her chest.

Pain wracked her, surging from hip and arm.

She climbed to her feet, ignoring the agony. Her horse was gone. But during the fall she'd managed to cling to her bow.

She spat on the iron spear tip. Water and cold iron, she thought hopefully, the same as she'd used against the Darkling Glory.

A shriek sounded as she looked up.

The wight was nearly upon her, mouth gaping as if to swallow. It was too late to stand still like a terrified rabbit, too late to hope that it might pass her by.

She lunged with her bow, sent its spear tip into the sweet triangle between the monster's eyes.

The Toth shrieked, and there was a blinding flash. Invisible
shards of ice seemed to fly through the air, sending pinpricks of cold that rushed through her.

Myrrima stared at the Toth. Its runic death wards suddenly blazed into blue fire, and for a brief second she had a vision: she thought she stared into a blinding haze, and in that light she saw warriors dressed in the ancient mode, with rounded helms and round shields. They surrounded the Toth on all sides, and plunged their spears into its flanks. She could hear them shouting, “Arten! Arten da gaspeilten!”

The vision faded, and Myrrima was thrown backward by the icy blast. The world went bitter cold. She'd never faced such cold.

Myrrima felt as if a glory hammer had slammed into her chest. Every single muscle in her body ached. In a daze she struggled to sit up, but her head reeled too much, and she fell backward.

Borenson grabbed her, picking her head up. “Are you alive? Can you hear me?”

“Wha—?” Myrrima managed to blurt.

His breath steamed in the icy air. Her right hand felt as if it had frozen at the knuckles.

“By the Seven Stones!” he swore. “That—that's not possible!”

She pulled herself up, ignoring the ache in her bones.

For fifty yards in every direction, the ground was blasted with hoarfrost. White crystals glistened under the starlight.

The wight was gone.

Yet her right hand ached, as if it blazed in a cold fire. She held it up, realized belatedly what had happened. She'd plunged her spear tip into the wight so hard that she had struck the beast with her hand. Her fist was as white as ice, and crystals shone brightly on the pale skin.

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