"Master, you should let Terzis or myself mindspeak with Medwin. Surely we can ill afford any weakening of your abilities."
Bardow smiled. "Ah, Guldamar," he said without looking round. "In some ways you are a credit to my teachings, but in others you still have progress to make." Finished with his exercises, he regarded his student. Guldamar was a handsome young man, his long, dark-brown hair braided back in several tails after the fashion of Dalbari mountainmen. Looking concerned, he dismounted and stood beside his horse with the reins in his hand, mouth opening to speak. Bardow forestalled him.
"When you get to my age, you'll realise that self-sacrifice is not always a good thing. I mindspoke with Medwin and Mazaret when we reached Vanyon's Ford because it was too far for you, and I'm doing so now because I want you bright and alert when we arrive at the walls of Sejeend."
Bardow paused a moment, noticing a plain blue ring on one of Guldamar's fingers, then he went on.
"Now, find Terzis and go over the elements of the Cadence thought-canto and its variants - make sure they're fresh in your mind. And with any luck you will live to be my age."
Looking chastened, Guldamar bowed his head then led his mount away. Bardow watched him leave, then shook his head, wondering whether the rings signified friendship or something deeper. Then he hitched his horse in the shelter of a nearby
eyeleaf
tree and tipped a little feed on the ground before striding over to where Rul Yarram was patiently waiting.
The thought-canto of Inner Speech was similar to Spiritwing, though not as demanding, and after only a few moments he was speaking with Medwin, eldest of the three mages accompanying Mazaret. Once the Lord Commander learned of Yarram's whereabouts, his response was concise -
We shall attack Sejeend's southern battlements within the hour. You must proceed without delay
.
After that, the men were given a few minutes to finish whatever they were eating before being ordered back into their saddles. Back on the lakeside trail, now churning into mud beneath scores of hooves, Bardow paused off to the side for a final backward look.
Across Lake Unglin, lush flatlands, tilled fields and pastures stretched back less than a mile from the lake shore then rose abruptly into the upthrusting immensity of the Rukang Mountains. A great cataract spilled from a centuries-worn notch in a cliff-face directly opposite, grey-white falls which hazed the air, crashing torrents throwing up clouds of vapour from a boulder-strewn pool at the foot of the cliffs. Here, at the eastern throat of Gronanvel, the Rukangs were at their steepest, their grimmest, most trackless and impassable. Bardow thought of the plains of Khatris which lay beyond, a country once known as the Land of Swords for all the battles fought there in olden times. Then, the Rukangs had been a vast bulwark against invasion from the south - now, it forced anyone coming from the north to choose between Vanyon's Ford and Sejeend.
And when we take Sejeend
, Bardow thought sombrely,
the enemy won't have a choice at all
.
* * *
The assault on Sejeend's lakeward defences began as planned. Rul Yarram arranged his cavalry in two wings with Bardow, Guldamar and Terzis in the front rank of the left. From there they would unleash a volley of Lesser Power spells and bring down part of the main wall and hopefully one of the three towers which guarded the approaches. Yarram's knights would then pour through the gap and take the defenders unprepared.
Battle standards were produced from saddlebags, snarling creatures of war on pale blue backgrounds. Banners flying, the knights cantered in formation from behind a long spur of forest and into full view of the ramparts of Sejeend. With exacting grace both wings wheeled to face the enemy and broke into a steady gallop. By now the rain had lifted and occasional shafts of sunshine lanced through the clouds, flashing on wet armour and unsheathed blades.
Bardow rode in the front rank flanked by Guldamar and Terzis, a slight intense woman who seldom smiled. Each had begun the thought-canto of Cadence several minutes before, and Bardow could feel an aura of Lesser Power gathering about them as the walls grew nearer.
He glanced sideways past Terzis at the straight, glittering ranks of galloping riders and thought,
Soon, very soon
...
And looked back to scores upon scores of enemy troops streaming out of a couple of open gates and racing pell-mell towards the oncoming cavalry.
"What insanity is this?" Guldamar shouted above the din of the charge.
Bardow did not answer, fixing his gaze upon the approaching mob. Every one seemed to be a seven-foot tall Mogaun savage roaring though a bristling beard and brandishing a club or a spear or a poleaxe. At first glance it was an unnerving sight but there was nothing coordinated about it.
Guldamar is right
, he thought.
This is madness. So what am I missing?
He frowned, trying to block out all other sensation as he began a second thought-canto in his mind. Knifeye, seeing through to the truth...
The strain of maintaining both spells was like a burning burden in his head, but he maintained. Off to the right, Yarram was gesturing the front ranks to level their spears as Bardow saw an onrushing knot of brutish warriors turn into terrified, rag-clad townsfolk. In horror, he wrenched his horse rightwards, trying to slow the impetus of those behind, trying to reach Yarram's wing of riders.
"Stop!" he cried. "It's an illusion - don't attack!..."
But it was too late. There was a mingled crash of screams as spears and swords struck down the blindly rushing, spell-disguised people. In a matter of seconds the open ground was a scene of slaughter. The carefully planned charge dissolved into confusion as some of Yarram's men dismounted and went to the aid of maimed and slain innocents. Bardow saw one young knight weeping over a dying woman he had speared only moments before, and another struggling to staunch a deep wound in the neck of an old man.
A hand grasped his shoulder roughly and he turned to see a dishevelled, blood-spattered Yarram.
"How could this happen, wizard?" he snarled. "Tell me, by the Mother!"
Bardow glared at him out of a hard knot of cold rage. "A Mogaun shaman is behind this abomination," he said. "Get your men back on their horses, commander. We have vengeance to exact."
Yarram met his iron gaze for a moment, then gave a sharp nod and rode off to goad his knights into action. Bardow sought out Guldamar and Terzis, and saw them tending to the wounded. His call to them was wordless, imperative, and they were back astride their horses and riding to meet him in moments.
Terzis was pale and trembling, her eyes red from tears, hands holding the reins in a white-knuckled grip. She seemed unable to speak, unlike Guldamar.
"I have never...never seen such a barbarous..." The young man struggled for words. "And I know where he is - "
"The middle tower," Bardow said. "He is watching us right now. I can feel his joy."
As one they turned to face the town, the walls, the middle of the three squat towers. Savage chants and jeers were faintly audible over the cries and moans of the wounded. Bardow strove with his senses, shutting it all out, then with head bowed he focussed on the thought-canto of Cadence, making its elements and gyring form the axis of his intent.
Like a song of his blood and bone, like a fire fuelled by heart and mind, it grew up from somewhere in his chest, up into his throat. He was vaguely aware of his companions enacting the same ritual as the spell burgeoned till he knew he could restrain it no longer. And all his anger erupted in a wordless roar out of which the Cadence sound was born. An instant later came Guldamar's, then Terzis'. The air itself distorted, grass tore and pebbles leaped with the passing of that three-fold shriek of power.
Invisible, it flew across the open ground. There was a moment of anticipation. Then it struck the tower. For a long instant the building held, powdered mortar puffing from between cracks, a few roof slates sent spinning. Then, like a child's toy of wooden blocks, it gave way, teetered and collapsed, clouds of dust billowing around crashing tons of timber and stone. A large piece of the tower toppled sideways onto a stretch of the ramparts, crushing dozens of the defending mercenaries and demolishing the wall. On the other side, a section of wall fell backwards into the town, tearing open a pair of heavy wooden gates. Yarram saw the opportunity and led his knights in a mad charge towards the unguarded gap.
But Bardow was already at the gates, urging his horse over the splintered wreckage, swinging his stave at the few remaining, dazed mercenaries. With a harsh clattering of hooves he rode into the cobbled town street and stared about him with a piercing gaze. When the tower had first begun to totter, he had seen a scrawny figure leap from one of its lower windows and now that the Cadence canto was spent he knew from suddenly heightened senses that the Mogaun shaman was alive and heading towards the south of the town. Bardow followed, head full of the sight of dying innocents, heart full of vengeance.
The roads sloped up in the direction of the pale stone mass of Hojamar Keep and the low saddle-ridge it had been built to guard many centuries ago. As he rode the din of Yarram's battle receded only to be replaced by other sounds of confusion. Gangs of townsfolk roamed the streets looking for Mogaun sympathisers or any mercenaries foolish enough to stray out alone. Smoke was rising from a dozen places across the town and from the battlements up on the ridge came the faint noise of fighting.
But Bardow was engaged in the hunt, tracing the hate-taste of the shaman through the streets of Sejeend. The bounds of his mind stretched as he shaped three thought-cantos, three separate and distinct braidings of smell, texture, form and sound, symbols both explicable and cryptic which were his personal links to the Lesser Power. The strain of it grew with each step, and although he could feel it starting to eat into his strength he was heedless, driven.
Few approached him as he rode through the smoky, twisting streets, and those who did he struck insensible with the thought-canto Lull. Before long he came to an imposing townhouse whose tall, narrow windows had been tightly shuttered and whose tall doors of carved agathon were guarded by four sentinels. Using Lull he disposed of them from horseback then dismounted, hitched his horse to a wall stanchion and climbed the steps to the doors.
Inside was a long dim hallway hung with heavy tapestries, their details scarcely revealed by a couple of weak, flickering tallow lamps. There were a few doors leading off yet Bardow made for the main staircase at the far end. He knew there were prisoners behind those doors, their fear and despair seeping out into the hall like a thin odour of agony. But they would have to wait until he had dealt with their tormentors.
He climbed through four floors of darkness broken only by grey slivers of daylight from a poorly-fitting window shutter, and the occasional lamp or guttering torch. All sounds were muted, the murmurs of prisoners, or their weeping, the creak of steps underfoot, faint shouts from outside, but no guards patrolling. Bardow could feel the malicious expectancy of his waiting enemy, and the towering arrogance.
Overconfident,
he thought.
Good
.
At the top floor his senses drew him to a short passage and five steps leading up to a door whose tree-and-bell carvings had been defaced with an axe. He paused and looked down at the stave he had brought with him - it was a two foot-long piece of agathon wood, its ends heeled with bands of rediron, its length incised with symbols and intricate patterns. Although it was not sorcerous, and held no power of its own, it was well made and satisfyingly heavy in the hand. He nodded to himself - it would have to do.
Then, with forced calmness, he stepped up to the door and pushed it open.
The hate was palpable as he entered the darkened room, a hate as thick as smoke, engulfing, tainting. Light bloomed from rushlights placed at either end of a long trestle upon which a hooded figure sat cross-legged. Glinting eyes regarded him amid a deathly silence. There was a sharp unsettling odour in the air and his undersense told him of the complex symbols drawn in blood upon the floor.
"
Ohosstu jun gyor sashdno maroi, yaspe?
".... Have you come to burn me with your flames, o mighty candle?"
Bardow's reply to this mocking barb was the thought-canto Lull, hurling its pent-up power straight at the Mogaun. A blue-white nimbus flickered around the seated shaman who grinned and uttered a low chuckle as the aura began to falter. Undaunted, Bardow released his second spell, the thought-canto Seethe, which he directed at the shaman's clothing and at the trestle beneath him.
Boiling steam erupted from the Mogaun's furs and likewise from the trestle's wooden planks. He shrieked in sudden pain and tore off his upper garments while scrambling bare-footed down onto the floor. Enraged, he flung out his arms towards Bardow, bony fingers hooked in claws, and spoke a string of barbaric words interspersed with clicks and other sounds.
Symbols appeared on the floor, glowing a hot, corrosive green. Simultaneously, the rushlights' weak radiance brightened and thickened, an eldritch sight in the steam-veiled room. Suddenly, the dense knots of light fountained towards the ceiling then swooped down at Bardow in the shape of huge fiery hands.
He reeled on his feet as they struck and enfolded him in an abominable grasp. Yet he stayed upright, eyes fixed on the wildly gesticulating shaman, and on his scrawny neck. The huge conjured hands were tightening their grip on his neck and chest, twisting, crushing. But he shut out the torment and instead used his third and final thought-canto, Trueflight, to enbind the stave he held in his free hand. With the last of his strength he drew back and hurled it at his foe.
All movement seemed to slow to a crawl. The Mogaun saw what Bardow had done and began to turn away but the enchanted stave altered the curvature of its flight accordingly. The panicking Mogaun held up a hand to fend off the attack, and the stave punched straight through it and the underside of the shaman's chin and lanced up into his brain.