Night's Haunting (15 page)

Lucius could hear men groan above the shriller cries of injured horses, and he waved his group forward to silence both. The men and women drew daggers and short swords, and went about their work with pitiless efficiency; within a few minutes, silence fell across the rocks.

The thieves edged closer to the coastal road and looked down onto the well-used track about eight yards below the escarpment on which they had hidden themselves. Beyond the track was a little vegetation, then a sheer drop as a cliff descended to the crashing ocean far below.

Lucius had remembered this place from a mercenary job he had taken years ago, when he had escorted a merchant's wagon through what had then been bandit territory. With the constant traffic to and from Vos, the bandits had long since gone, but every thief present hoped to teach the Empire that their roads were no longer safe. If what Lucius had told them was true, doing so would prove to be highly profitable.

They did not have long to wait. A low whistle from Ambrose, higher up the escarpment, caught their attention.

"Here we go," Wendric said, checking the tension on his bowstring. Satisfied, he laid his quiver on the ground and drew an arrow. Some other thieves had done the same, while others had removed all of their arrows and driven their tips into the ground. All had their eyes fixed firmly north, waiting for the appearance of more Vos soldiers.

"Here they come," Wendric muttered, sighting his first target.

Lucius looked down the coastal road and smiled.

"This is going to be perfect," he said.

The silver train moved slowly, taking several minutes to come into view. Three more outriders led the column in front of two covered wagons, which Lucius guessed carried more soldiers as well as supplies for the entire convoy. Trailing at the rear was a similar wagon and three more outriders. However, it was the magnificent wagon in the centre of the formation that had all the thieves' attention.

Drawn by six huge draft horses, it towered over the wagons before and behind it. Large metal sheets were hammered onto its sides, each punctuated with a single arrow slit, betraying the crossbow-wielding soldiers inside. On top of the wagon, Lucius could see half a dozen more soldiers sheltering behind crenellated walls, again armed with crossbows.

It was a moving fortress, apparently impregnable.

"That thing is built to wage war," Wendric said.

"It is more for show than practical use," Lucius said. "It would not do much good in a battle. It's too slow. Although it will no doubt cause us some problems."

"Our arrows are just going to bounce off it."

"The horses are still its weakness. Stick to the plan. Once we immobilise it and take care of the rest of the train, it will seem a little less fearsome."

With aching slowness, the convoy began to file past below them. The thieves kept their heads down; only Ambrose kept watch, using his jerriscope to see over the lip of the escarpment.

The minutes dragged by, and Lucius grew impatient, looking to Ambrose for the signal to attack and resisting the urge to crawl forward and look over the escarpment himself.

At last, Ambrose waved a hand, then raised himself to a kneeling position, exchanging his jerriscope for his shortbow. The other thieves followed him.

Lucius stood up from behind the escarpment. The lead wagon was right below his position, and the outriders had already moved past, presenting their backs to the thieves. The men closest to Lucius, led by Wendric, all aimed at the target that had been assigned to them - the horses of the lead wagon.

Arrows lanced down on their marks. The horses were soon bristling with shafts, and began to panic. The wagon driver, caught completely unawares, lost the reins as the horses tried to bolt. One fell motionless to the ground, two shafts sprouting from its head and neck.

Another volley of arrows cut the driver down and disabled the other horses. Dead or wounded, they were no longer a concern, and Lucius directed the thieves' fire to the horses of the second wagon.

Further down the caravan, Ambrose's thieves had attacked the trailing wagon, and already two of the horses were immobile. Lucius smiled grimly. So far, the plan was working. The driver of the huge war wagon looked about desperately, caught between his desire to hide and his duty to drive the wagon clear of the ambush. He chose the latter, but the six-horse wagon was not an agile vehicle in the best of conditions, and the thin track ahead of him, winding between the high escarpment and the sheer cliffs, was filled with crippled wagons and screaming horses. There was nowhere for him to go.

An angry shout caught Lucius' attention, and he turned to see the leading outriders gesturing futilely up at him. They were looking for a route up on to the escarpment in order to bring the ambushes to battle, but the closest slope upwards was some way north, and their long spears were designed for charging, not for throwing.

Closing his eyes momentarily, Lucius concentrated, pulling upon one of the threads of magic; he immediately felt the presence of the sparse vegetation around his feet, the rocks behind him, and the ground below. Shaping the thread, he fashioned a huge harpoon in his mind's eye, rippling with arcane energy. Crouching, he hammered both of his fists onto the ground.

Wendric cast him an odd look, seeing only his fellow thief beating at the rocks. In his mind, however, Lucius watched his bolt of energy drive through the ground, through the stone and rock of the escarpment, and under the horses of the outriders. The ground burst open beneath their feet in an explosion of force that threw earth high into the air. One horse and its rider, nearest the centre of the burst, was catapulted over the cliff, to be lost in the churning waves of the sea. The other two horses whinnied pitifully, their legs broken by the spell. One rider was trapped under his mount, the other pulling desperately to free his comrade.

It had taken the thieves just moments to launch their ambush, but the speed at which the Vos soldiers responded was impressive. Crossbow bolts began to fly from the top of the large wagon. A few seconds later, they were joined by shots from inside the large wagon, the tips of crossbows protruding slightly from the slits in the metal armour.

The shots were hurried, but several thieves yelped as bolts flew too close for comfort, or else found their marks. From their vantage point, the thieves had a clear view down onto the crenellated roof of the wagon, and when the Vos soldiers halted shooting to reload, several arrows fell on the chests and faces of the men stationed there. However, while other thieves targeted the main body of the wagon itself, their shots were not accurate enough to find the narrow slits, and bounced and skidded off its metal hull. When the soldiers inside reloaded, the thieves had no choice but to go to ground.

"This could end up being a stalemate," Wendric said.

"No, we can break the deadlock," Lucius said, and he ran past Wendric to be nearer the armoured wagon and the thieves attacking it.

"On my mark," he called to the thieves. "Stand and fire!"

A few of the thieves looked up at him dubiously, but they dutifully nocked arrows to their strings.

"Wendric," Lucius shouted over his shoulder. "Break out the ropes, and wait for my signal."

He saw Wendric give instructions to his thieves, who buried spikes and hooks into the ground or wedged them between rocks. Crouching at the lip of the escarpment, they held coiled lengths of rope that had been tied to the spikes, waiting for the next order.

"Up!" Lucius said. As one, the thieves stood and loosed, once again watching their arrows bounce uselessly off the armoured wagon.

A second later, crossbows were again pushed through the slits.

"Hold and reload!" Lucius shouted, before the thieves could think about ducking down again. This drew some dubious looks, though all but one held his ground.

Quickly drawing upon the thread of natural magic once more, Lucius reached out with his hand and felt the wind currents flowing in from the raging sea. Binding them to his will, he felt the air itself buckle and reshape itself under his direction, forming a fast moving barrier between the wagon and the thieves.

When the crossbows of the Vos soldiers fired, their bolts travelled just a few yards before being ripped from their courses by the wind, only to fall to the ground half a mile away. Lucius briefly released the air currents from his command, and turned back to the thieves.

"Continue shooting, keep their heads down if nothing else!" So saying, he turned to Wendric and nodded.

Wendric barked an order, and his thieves threw their ropes down the escarpment, throwing themselves over the edge and sliding down to the road. Glancing back up the track, Lucius saw that Ambrose was slightly ahead, with his men already on the road and approaching the rearmost wagon.

The continued volleys from the remaining thieves on the escarpment were sufficient to at least disrupt the return shots from the armoured wagon, and when Lucius saw crossbows begin to appear at the slits, he once more brought down his wind shield to block the flight of the bolts. Satisfied that the morale of the Vos soldiers was at least shaken, he turned to the archers.

"Carry on shooting," he said. "Give us cover down there."

He ran back down the length of the escarpment and swung himself over the edge when he reached the first rope. The ramps at the back of the first two wagons had dropped down, and Vos soldiers were beginning to pour out, brandishing spears and shields. Lucius cursed, praying that the archers had seen them and were already taking aim. The thieves down on the road would be little match against trained and heavily armoured soldiers.

Climbing down the rope, hand over hand, he drew his sword as soon as he hit the ground, just as the first volley of arrows from the escarpment started to fall among the soldiers.

The arrows found two of the soldiers, their tips passing shield and armour to bury themselves in their flesh; the rest were caught on shields. Wendric thrust under the guard of one soldier who had raised his shield to defend against the volley, the thief meeting no resistance as he sank his blade into the man's side.

Other thieves were having less luck, and quickly found themselves on the defensive, driven back by the disciplined soldiers. Angling their shields to face both the archers and the thieves on the ground, they paced forward, steadily driving the ambushers toward Lucius' position.

Seeing the attack faltering, Lucius cried out for his men to scatter, clearing a path between him and the soldiers. Taking a deep breath, he summoned his magic forth, holding his hands outstretched, palms upwards. He felt the energy pour down his arms, swelling until he held a large, rolling ball of fire steady, its flames licking just a few inches above his naked skin.

He flung the fireball forwards, feeding ever more power into the spell so the ball accelerated as it flew through the air. It struck the shields in the centre of the soldiers' line with blinding speed, knocking the soldiers back several yards. Seeing his chance, Wendric raised his sword and shouted a rallying cry. His thieves charged.

Once among the disorganised and battered soldiers, the battle became more even. Here a thief was smashed in the face by a soldier's shield and spitted on the end of a spear, while there another parried a soldier's blow with one blade and struck under his guard with the other, finding stomach, thigh or shin.

The soldiers, adhering to their training, tried to reform their shield wall, but were matched by thieves working on instinct and relying on foul play. A soldier confronting one thief would be flanked by another, piercing the chainmail on his back with a well-placed dagger thrust. Within moments, the dead and dying of both sides littered the ground, hindering those still fighting.

Shouts from further up the road checked Lucius' own entry into the fray. Ambrose's thieves had met the soldiers stationed in the rearmost wagon. Their fight was nearly finished, the soldiers outnumbered and already depleted by arrows, but some of the thieves had begun to panic. It took Lucius a few seconds to work out what was happening; he took a step towards them, then stopped as he felt a familiar pressure inside his head.

On top of the armoured wagon, a middle-aged man, looking like a wealthy merchant in his gilded blue tunic, was peering down at the thieves. Lucius saw the magical strands flex and twist at the presence of this man, and knew another spellcaster had joined the battle.

The Vos wizard held his hands out to the sky, then pointed down at the thieves at the far end of the train. Among the thieves, the corpses of the slain Vos soldiers stirred. They grasped the ankles of thieves to bear them down, or dragged themselves to their feet, picking their spears up and advancing on the thieves once again.

Ambrose, unshaken by the obvious sorcery, advanced upon the animated corpses, sword in hand. Following his example, some of the thieves stood to fight the enemies they had only just killed, while others panicked at the sight of the unnatural soldiers, and two broke and fled.

The raised soldiers were uncoordinated and inaccurate, if no slower than they had been in life, and no longer fought as a single unit, but if they could pick themselves up after every death, they would inevitably overwhelm the thieves sooner or later.

Turning to the larger battle at the front of the train, the Vos wizard began to chant his spell once more, and saw Lucius standing before him. Their eyes locked in a grim challenge, and Lucius could not help give a wicked smile.

He could feel the Vos wizard pluck and twist at the strand of magic that governed death and unlife - necromancy, Forbeck had called it. He could also see that this was the only talent the wizard could manifest. The man, for all his long years of study, might as well have been completely ignorant of all the other radiant shades of magic, and the power that lay within them.

Lucius remained calm as the wizard dropped the corpse-raising spell and prepared an attack that would suck the life out of him.
Alright Forbeck, you old rascal
, Lucius thought.
Let me see if your theory of magic has any weight
.