Wizardborn (71 page)

I have learned that my kingdom has no borders.

And that all men are more than mere subjects
—
they are my kinsmen, my brethren—and therefore deserving of my devotion.

I find that I grieve the loss of strangers as I would grieve the loss of my only child.

—
Erden Geboren

Skalbairn sat on his charger as Gaborn studied the reavers. Skalbairn could see the wheels of the lad's mind turning as he considered how to best the reavers. The reavers were stalking toward Feldonshire.

The boy had no time to plot any elegant strategies. The main force of his cavalry held the hill to the west. But if Gaborn raced to them now, he would have to skirt the reavers' lines. By the time he reached his men, the reavers would be into Feldonshire, hunting.

“Gentlemen,” Gaborn said firmly. “I believe we can stop the slaughter before it begins—but only at great cost.”

Gaborn looked up at the hundred men who had ridden with him, staring each in the eye. “I'm for the Underworld, and cannot lead the charge. And any man who rides now must consider his life forfeit. Will you ride?”

The lad was serious. Skalbairn had never seen an expression like Gaborn wore now. There was suffering and pain in his eyes, and sorrow in his brow, and a consuming need.

Skalbairn's blood went chill. As a child he'd dreamt of
being a warrior, and in his fondest dreams he'd imagined that an Earth King would arise someday, and Skalbairn would fight at his side.

But he'd never dreamt of it like this. The Earth King never asked him to die.

There was a moment of silence from the lords. Skalbairn knew that his men would ride, but none wanted to be the first to speak.

“In the world to come,” Skalbairn inquired, “may I ride beside you in the Great Hunt?”

“Aye,” Gaborn said. “Any man who rides now will ride with me then.” It was an empty promise, Skalbairn knew. Not all men rose as wights.

Skalbairn spat on the ground. “'Tis a bargain, then!”

A cheer rose from the men at Skalbairn's back. Some drew their warhammers and beat them against shields, others waved their lances.

The only man who did not cheer was Baron Waggit, who sat silently on his mount, thinking. It was a capacity new to him, Skalbairn reasoned, an unfamiliar tool.

Gaborn raised a hand, warning them to silence.

“We'll need a diversion,” Gaborn said. He drew a hexagon on the ground. “You'll break into three squadrons. We'll send fifty men on a charge here to the left, another fifty to charge to the right. As the reavers' move to attack, it should thin the line here at the front. A small force of men on fast horses can race through the lines and lance the mage.”

“Milord,” Skalbairn asked, “may I volunteer to strike the blow?”

The lad's face was pale. He took a deep breath, nodded.

Skalbairn was sure then that he would die. Marshal Chondler said, “I'll ride with him, as should any man of the Brotherhood of the Wolf.”

With that, a third man made the offer, Lord Kellish, and Gaborn nodded, and said, “That's enough.”

Gaborn stared evenly at the hundred Knights Equitable who were going to ride into battle, said in a solemn tone, “Thank you. I'll need each of you to fight like reavers now.”

Gaborn pulled out his warhorn and said, “The left wing charge on my command, two blasts quickly. The right wing will go on one blast long. Skalbairn, I'll ride with you part of the way.”

Skalbairn and the knights quickly dismounted, checked their girth straps. Not every man had a lance, but every man wanted one. He quickly checked his charger's hooves. The heavy war shoes were all in place. The leather bindings for its barding were tight.

For years, Skalbairn had lived as a moral failure. For years he had believed that only death might bring him some release.

He pulled off his purse, looked up at Baron Waggit. The
young man sat on his horse, looking grim and thoughtful. He was big, handsome in a brutish sort of way, with a color of blond hair favored back in Internook. He wasn't riding into battle, and that was good. He knew that this fight was beyond him. Maybe he'd never be a warrior. He'd make a fine farmer, or perhaps someday go back to the mines. With any luck, he'd live to a ripe old age. Right now, that was all that Skalbairn wanted from the man.

Damn it, Skalbairn thought. A day ago we all thought him a fool, and now he's wiser than all the rest of us put together.

“Waggit,” Skalbairn called. The young man turned, his pale blue eyes piercing in the mid-morning sun. “Some gold. I'd be grateful if you'd take it to my daughter, Farion. See that she's well cared for.”

Waggit considered the request.

Skalbairn felt certain that if Waggit saw the girl, he'd feel for her plight. Waggit knew better than any man the world his idiot daughter was trapped in. He'd recognize her virtues and her goodness. His daughter was as kind as she was simple, and her smile was as infectious as a plague. She'd never make another man a proper wife. She could do small chores—bring in firewood or pluck a chicken for dinner. All she needed was a good man, capable of loving her. He'd need to be a patient man to care for her, to buy goods at the market, and help her rear her children—one forgiving of her weaknesses.

Skalbairn whispered to the Powers, Let him be that man.

Waggit nodded. “I'll give it to her.”

“May the Bright Ones protect you,” Skalbairn said softly.

Skalbairn climbed on his horse, spurred the mount down the slope, leading the way. There was no more time for niceties.

In moments, Gaborn and the others all gathered around him, and the assault began without fanfare, a hundred men against more than three thousand reavers.

The reavers were running fast, heading toward Feldonshire,
loping over the plains with their backs to him, each reaver like a gray hill.

Skalbairn let his huge black charger race. He dropped his lance into a couch. Beside him, a hundred men fanned out. The sulfur and alkali crusting the plains muted the sound of the horse's hooves, and went flying as they charged.

The plain was as flat and barren of stones as it could be. There were painfully few trees or bushes, hardly even any grass.

He'd never had a better surface for a cavalry charge.

Langley veered to the right, leading fifty men to the far side of the hexagon. Lord Gulliford guided another fifty left.

“Ranks three deep,” Gaborn said to Skalbairn, Marshal Chondler, and Lord Kellish. “Make sure that you cut through the lines!”

Gaborn sounded two blasts short. Gulliford's riders gave their chargers their heads.

Gaborn sounded one blast long, and Langley's men swept to the right, driving hard.

Gaborn held his three champions back. Baron Waggit rode beside them.

Skalbairn reined his mount, watched the enemy lines.

Gulliford's men swept into the reavers, lanced dozens from behind, then veered away from the front, riding as if in a Knight's Circus. The reavers spun to face them, blade-bearers closing ranks to form a wall of flesh while sorceresses leveled their staves and hurled dire spells. Clouds of green smoke rained down on the fifty. In the mountains the reavers had thrown stones, but the sandy soil here left their artillery with nothing at hand. Only half a dozen men fell under the onslaught.

Almost immediately, Langley's men hit the reavers' right flank.

As Gaborn had predicted, the untrained reavers broke rank on both flanks, rushed to do battle.

Thus the front before Skalbairn thinned.

“Fare thee well!” Gaborn shouted.

“Till we meet in the shadowed vale!” Skalbairn roared, and spurred his mount. The ground blurred beneath his charger's feet. Skalbairn's black stallion had three endowments of metabolism, and would rank among the fastest in the world. Many better-endowed mounts could hit speeds of eighty or ninety miles an hour, but his outraced them.

To hit a reaver at that speed would surely leave him dead. To fall from his horse would break every bone in his body.

Skalbairn held his lance steady. He glanced back, saw Chondler a hundred yards behind him, followed by Lord Kellish.

He spurred his mount and shouted, “Faster!”

Many of the blade-bearers held no weapons at all. He aimed his mount between two of them.

At two hundred yards he drew close enough so that the reavers could sense him. But with his mount racing at over a hundred miles an hour, the reavers barely had time to spin. Without a glory hammer or a blade for the reavers to defend themselves, he darted easily between the first ranks.

A hiss of warning rose from reavers all around.

Off to his right, a quick-thinking sorceress hurled a spell.

A billowing stench flowed out behind him, bowled into the lines ahead, staggering a blade-bearer.

He swerved left now, into the second rank of reavers, never slowing. These were smaller beasts, without weapons. A reaver off to his right did not even spin to meet him. It was loping along, philia dangling, dead on its feet.

He aimed his mount toward it.

He heard the clatter of armor behind him—a shattering lance and a man shouting a war cry. A horse screamed. Reaver spells exploded in the air.

Baron Waggit's horse walked beside that of the Earth King, and he watched the Runelords charge into battle. He'd witnessed a hundred deaths in the past day, but would never grow used to it.

He felt loath to lose Skalbairn. As High Marshal of the
Knights Equitable, the huge warrior had the respect of every lord in Rofehavan, and to Waggit's surprise, the man had taken him under his wing. He'd taught him a little of how to use the staff yesterday. Miraculously, he'd even sought to match him with his daughter.

In all his life, Waggit could not remember any man ever wishing him as a son-in-law. No woman had ever desired him as a lover. No man would have wanted him as a brother.

The gift of memory was such a many-faceted thing. Now, for the first time in his life, he was desired. Yet his memory was unstable.

For the past day, he'd troubled himself in idle moments, trying to recall his real name. From time to time, it had come to him in the past, but he'd never been able to hold it for more than a few minutes. He did not want to go through life called by the name Waggit, for he felt sure it had been foisted on him derisively.

Yet his real name would not come to him, and the few memories he dredged up were full of pain. He recalled his father beating him as a child, for he had put too much wood in the hearth and the whole house nearly caught fire. He recalled sitting up in a tree one night, feeling lonely as he watched a V of geese wing past the rising moon, while children taunted him below. Of his mother, he could remember nothing at all.

It seemed that the memories he was making now were all darker still. He'd watched from afar as the horde destroyed Feldonshire. He'd heard the muted death cries on the banks of the river Donnestgree as the reavers fell among the wounded from Carris. Even now, they echoed in his memory. He suspected that they would forever.

Thus Gaborn's blessing became a curse.

“Skalbairn's going to die, isn't he?” Waggit asked Gaborn.

“Yes,” Gaborn said. “I believe so.”

There must be an end to the dying, Waggit told himself.

“Am I going to die today?” Waggit asked.

“No.”

“Good,” Waggit said.

He spurred his mount toward the reavers' battle lines.

Skalbairn glanced back. Chondler had tried to cut past a huge blade-bearer armed with a knight gig, but it darted in front of him. The monster snagged Chondler's charger out from beneath him, ripping open the mount's belly. The horse's gut spilled to the ground, and Chondler went down with it.

Behind him, Kellish veered and slowed. A sorceress hurled a dark yellow cloud that swallowed man and horse. Lord Kellish screamed and his horse never made it from under the shadow of that foul curse.