Bremen had foreseen it all, and now it was left to the handful who had believed him to find a way to prevent the inevitable from happening.
Risca reached into his pack, pulled out a piece of day-old bread he had bought at the edge of the border settlements, and began to chew absently on it. He had left Bremen and the others of the little company three days earlier at the mouth of the Hadeshorn. He had come east out of Callahorn to carry word to the Dwarves of the Warlock Lord’s approach, to warn them of the danger, and to persuade them that they must make a stand against the Northland army. But by the time he had reached the western edge of the Rabb, he had decided that his task would be made considerably easier if he could report that he had seen the approaching army with his own eyes. Then he could offer an estimate of its size and strength and thereby be more persuasive in his appeal. So he had turned north and used a second day to reach the Jannisson. There, on this third day, he had crouched in hiding in the foothills of the Dragon’s Teeth, and watched the army of the Warlock Lord come down out of the Streleheim; it had grown larger and larger until it seemed there would be no end to it. He had counted units and commands, animals and wagons, tribal pennants and standards of battle until he had its measure. It might as well have been the whole Troll nation come to call. It was the largest army he had ever seen. The Dwarves could never stand alone against it. They could slow it, delay it perhaps, but they could not stop it. Even if the Elves came to stand with them, they would still be badly outnumbered. And they had no magic of the sort wielded by Brona and the Skull Bearers and the netherworld creatures. They had no talismans. They had only Bremen, Tay Trefenwyd, and himself, the last of the Druids.
Risca shook his head, chewing and swallowing. The odds were too great. He needed to find a way to even them up.
He finished his bread and drank deeply from the aleskin he carried strapped across his shoulder. Then he rose and moved back to the precipice, where he could look down on the encamped army. Fires had been lit by now, the descent of night’s darkness nearly complete, and the plains were bright with clusters of flame and the air thick with smoke. The army sprawled for almost a mile, bustling with activity, alive with sound and movement. Food was being prepared and bedding unrolled. Repairs were being undertaken and plans laid. Risca stared down from his perch, disheartened and angry. If strength of will and rage alone could have stopped this madness, his would have been sufficient. He caught a glimpse of a pair of Skull Bearers as they circled the inky skies beyond the aura of the firelight, searching for spies, and he hunched down into the concealing rocks, becoming one with the mountains, another colorless piece of the rough terrain. His eyes wandered the length and breadth of the campsite, but kept returning to the black silken litter in which the Warlock Lord reposed. It had been lowered to the ground now, set deep within the army’s midst, surrounded by Trolls and other creatures less human, a small island of silence within the teeming mass of activity. No fires were lit close to it. No creatures approached from the light. Blackness pooled about it like a lake, leaving it solitary and marked as inviolate.
Risca’s face hardened. The trouble begins and ends with the monster who occupies that tent, he was thinking. The Warlock Lord is the head of the beast that threatens us all. Cut off the head, and the beast dies.
Kill the Warlock Lord, and the danger ends.
Kill the Warlock Lord . . .
It was a wild, reckless, impulsive thought, and he did not allow himself to pursue it. He shoved it aside and forced himself to consider his responsibilities. Bremen was depending on him. He must bring word of this army to the Dwarves so that they could prepare for the invasion of their homeland. He must persuade the Dwarves to engage an army many times its size in a battle they could not hope to win. He must convince Raybur and the Elders of the Dwarf Council that a means would be found to destroy the Warlock Lord and that the Dwarves must buy with their lives the time that was needed to accomplish this. It was a tall order and would require a great sacrifice. It would be up to him to lead them, the warrior Druid who could stand against any creature the Warlock Lord might employ.
For Risca had been born to battle. It was all he knew. He grew to manhood in the Ravenshorn, the son of parents who had lived their entire lives in the Eastland wilderness. His father was a scout and his mother a trapper. There had been eight brothers and sisters on his father’s side and seven on his mother’s. Most of them lived within a few miles of one another still, and Risca had been raised by all at one time or another. Over the years of his boyhood, he saw as much of his aunts and uncles and cousins as he did his parents. There was a sharing of responsibility for raising the young in his family. The Dwarves of this part of the world were constantly at war with the Gnome tribes, and everyone was always at risk. But Risca was equal to the challenge. He was taught to fight and hunt at an early age, and he discovered that he was good at it—better than good, in fact. He could sense things the others could not. He could spy out what was hidden from them. He was quick and agile and strong beyond his years. He understood the art of survival. He stayed alive when others did not.
At twelve, he was attacked by a Koden and killed the beast. He was thirteen when one of a company of twenty that was ambushed by Gnomes. He alone escaped. When his mother was killed setting lines, he was only fifteen, but he tracked down those responsible and dispatched them single-handedly. When his father died in a hunting accident, he carried his body deep into the heart of Gnome country and buried it there so that his spirit could continue the fight against their enemies. Half of his brothers and sisters were dead by then, lost to battle or sickness. He lived in a violent, unforgiving world, and his life was hard and uncertain. But Risca survived, and it was whispered when they thought he could not hear, for he was superstitious where fate was concerned, that the blade had not been forged that could kill him.
When he was twenty he came down out of the Ravenshorn to Culhaven and entered into the service of Raybur, newly crowned King of the Dwarves and a much admired warrior himself. But Raybur kept him in Culhaven only a short time before sending him to Paranor and the Druids. Raybur recognized Risca’s special talents and believed the Dwarf people would be best served if the young man with the warrior’s heart and the hunter’s skills was trained by the Druids. He, too, like Courtann Ballindarroch of the Elves, knew of Bremen and admired him. So a note was addressed to the old man, asking that he consider giving young Risca special consideration as a student. Thus bearing the note, Risca traveled to Paranor and the Druid’s Keep and stayed, becoming a staunch follower of Bremen and a believer in the ways of the magic.
His eyes stayed fixed on the black silken tent in the enemy camp below as he thought of the ways in which the magic now served him. His was the strongest after Bremen’s—stronger these days perhaps, given his youth and stamina and the other’s age. That was what he firmly believed, though he knew Tay Trefenwyd would certainly argue the matter. Like Tay, Risca had studied assiduously the lessons taught by Bremen, working at them even after the old man was banished, testing himself over and over again. He studied and trained virtually alone, for no others among the Druids, even Tay Trefenwyd, considered themselves warriors or sought to master the battle arts as he did. For Risca, the magic had but a single useful purpose—to protect himself and his friends and to destroy his enemies. The other uses of magic were of no interest to him—healing, divining, prescience, empathics, mastery of the sciences, elementalism, history, and conjuring. He was a fighter, and strength of arms was his passion.
The memories came and faded, and his thoughts returned to the matter at hand. What should he do? He could not abandon his responsibilities, but he could not ignore who he was either. Below, the silken folds of the tent seemed to ripple in the faint dance of the firelight. One blow was all it would take. How easily their problems would be solved if he could deliver it!
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was not afraid of Brona. He was aware of how dangerous the other was, how powerful, b
ut he was not afraid. He possessed considerable magic himself, and if he employed it in a direct strike, he did not think that anyone or anything could withstand it.
He closed his eyes. Why was he even considering this? If he failed, there would be no one to give warning to the Dwarves! He would have given his life for nothing!
But if he were to succeed . . .
He eased back into the rocks, slipped off his travel cloak, and began to strip away his weapons. He supposed his mind had been made up from the moment the idea had entered his head. Kill the Warlock Lord and put an end to this madness. He was the best suited of any of them to make the attempt. This was the ideal time, when the Northland army was still close to home and Brona believed himself safe from attack. Even if he died, too, it would be worth it. Risca was willing to make that sacrifice. A warrior was always prepared to make that sacrifice.
When he was down to his boots, pants, and tunic, he shoved a dagger in his belt, picked up his battle-axe, and started down through the rocks. It was nearing midnight by the time he reached the foot of the mountains and started across the plains. Overhead, the Skull Bearers still circled, but he was behind them by now and cloaked in magic that concealed him from their spying eyes. They were looking outward for enemies and would not see him. He walked easily, loosely, his approach silent in the black, the light of the campfires masking him from those who might notice his approach. Their sentry system was woefully inadequate. A perimeter of guards, a mix of Gnomes and Trolls, had placed themselves too far apart and too close to the light to be able to see anything coming in out of the dark. The skies were clouded and the night air was hazy with smoke, and it would take sharp eyes under the best of circumstances to catch sight of any movement on the plains.
Still, Risca took no chances. He came in at a crouch when the cover of grasses and scrub thinned, picking his place of approach carefully, choosing one of the Gnome sentries as a target. Leaving the battle-axe in the long grass, he went in with only the dagger. The Gnome sentry never saw him. He dragged the body back out into the grasses, concealed it, wrapped himself in the fellow’s cloak, pulled up the hood to hide his face, picked up the axe again, and started in.
Another man would have thought twice about just walking right up to an enemy camp. Risca gave it barely any thought at all. He knew that a direct approach was always best when you were trying to catch someone off guard, and that you tended to notice less of what was right before your eyes than of what lurked at the fringes of your vision. The tendency was to discount what didn’t make sense, and a lone enemy strolling right past you into the center of your own heavily armed camp made no sense at all.
Nevertheless, Risca stayed at the edges of the firelight as he entered, and he kept the cloak in place. He did not skulk or lower his head, for that would signal that something was wrong. He moved as if he belonged and did not alter his approach. He passed the outer perimeter of guards and fires and moved into the center of the camp. Smoke wafted past him, and he used it like a screen. Shouts and laughter rose all about, men eating and drinking, telling tales and swapping lies. Armor and weapons clinked, and the pack animals stamped and snorted in the hazy dark. Risca moved through them all without slowing, never losing sight of his destination, now a ragged jut of poles and dark pennants lifting above the swarm of the army. He carried the battle-axe low against his side, and he projected himself through his magic as a soldier of no consequence, as just another Gnome Hunter on his way to somewhere unimportant.
He passed deep into the maze of fires and men, skirting wagons and stacks of supplies, tethered lines of pack animals and menders engaged in repair of traces and equipment, and vast racks of pikes and spears, their shafts and armored tips angling skyward. He kept to the portions of the camp that were occupied by Gnomes when he could, but now and again was forced to pass through clusters of Trolls. He shied from them as a Gnome might, deferential, wary, not showing fear, but not challenging either, turning away from them as he approached, not quite meeting the craggy, impersonal faces, the battle-hardened stares. He could feel their eyes settle on him and then move away. But no one stopped him or called him back. No one found him out.
Sweat ran down his back and under his arms, and it was not from the heat of the night. Now men were beginning to sleep, to roll themselves into their cloaks next to the fires and go quiet. Risca went more swiftly. He needed the noise and the bustle to mask his movements. If everyone slept, he would seem out of place still moving about. He was closing on the Warlock Lord’s haven now—he could see its canopy lifting against the darkness ahead. The number of fires was thinning out as he approached, and the number of soldiers about them was dwindling. No one was allowed to come too close to the quarters of the Warlock Lord, and none wished to. Risca stopped at the edge of a fire where a dozen men lay sleeping. Trolls, huge, hard-featured fighters, their weapons lying next to them. He ignored them, studying the open ground ahead. A hundred feet separated the black tent on all sides from the sleeping army. There were no sentries to be seen. Risca hesitated. Why were there no guards? He glanced about carefully, searching for them. There were none to be found.
At that moment, he almost turned back. There was something wrong with this, he sensed. There should be guards. Did they wait within the tent? Were they somewhere he could not see? To find out, he would have to cross the open ground between the closest of the watch fires and the tent. There was enough light to reveal his coming, so he would have to use magic to cloak his approach. He would be all alone out there, and there would be nowhere to hide.
His mind raced. Would there be Skull Bearers? Were they all out hunting or did some remain behind to protect the Master? Did other creatures stand guard?
The questions burned through him, unanswerable.
He hesitated a moment longer, glancing about, listening, testing the air. Then he tightened his grip on the battle-axe and started forward. He brought the magic up to shield him, to help him blend into the night, to make him one with the darkness. Just a shading, so that even someone familiar with the magic would not be warned. Determination swept through him. He could do this. He must. He crossed the open ground, as silent as a cloud scudding across a windswept sky. No sounds reached out to him. No movement caught his eye. Even now, he could find no one protecting the tent.
Then he was beside it, the air about him gone deathly still, the sounds and smells and movements of the army faded away. He stood close to the black silk and waited for his instincts to warn him of a trap. When they did not, he brought the edge of the battleaxe, sharp as a razor, down the fabric’s dark skin and slit it open.
He heard something then—a sigh, perhaps, or a low moan. He stepped quickly through the opening.
Despite the blackness of the enclosure, his eyes were able to adjust immediately. There was nothing there—no people, no furniture, no weapons, no bedding, no sign of life. The tent was empty.
Risca stared in disbelief.
Then a hiss rose out of the silence, low and pervasive, and the air began to move in front of his face. The blackness coalesced, coming together to form a thing of substance where a moment earlier there had been nothing. A black-cloaked figure began to take shape. Risca realized what was happening and a terrible chill swept through him. The Warlock Lord had been there all along, there in the darkness, invisible, watching and waiting. Perhaps he had even known of Risca’s coming. He was not, as the Dwarf had believed, a creature of flesh and blood that could be killed with ordinary weapons. He had transcended his mortal shell through his magic and could now assume any form—or no form at all. No wonder there were no guards. None were needed.
The Warlock Lord reached out for him. For a second Risca found that he could not move and believed he would die without being able to lift a finger to save himself. Then the fire of his determination broke through his fear and galvanized him. He roared in defiance at the terrible black shape, at the skeletal hand that reached for him, at the eyes as red as blood, at his terror, at fate’s betr
ayal. His battle-axe came up in a huge sweep, the fire of his own magic sweeping its length. The Warlock Lord gestured, and Risca felt as if iron bands had fastened themselves about his body. With a tremendous effort, he snapped them asunder and flung the battle-axe. The weapon smashed into the cloaked form and exploded in flames.
Risca did not wait to see the result of his strike. He knew instinctively that this was a battle he could not win. Strength of arms and fighting skills alone were not enough to defeat this enemy. The moment he released the axe, he dove back through the opening in the tent, scrambled to his feet, and broke for freedom. Already shouts were rising out of the firelight, and men were waking from their sleep. Risca did not look behind him, but he could feel Brona’s presence like a black cloud, reaching out for him, trying to drag him back. He raced across the open ground and leaped through the nearest fire, kicking at the dying flames, scattering sparks and brands in every direction. He snatched up a sword from a sleeping man and dodged left into the haze of smoke from the scattered fire.
Alarms rose from every quarter. The hand of the Warlock Lord still reached for him, tightening about his chest, but it grew weaker as he widened the distance between them. His wits had scattered, and he tried to regain them. A Troll appeared before him, challenging his passage, and he left the dagger buried in the other’s throat. He reacted instinctively, unable to think clearly yet. Men were swirling all about him, running in every direction, searching for the cause of the uproar, still unaware that it was him. He forced himself to slow, to ignore the frantic beat of his pulse and the tightness about his chest. Shades! He had come so close! He moved swiftly now, but he no longer ran. By running, he drew attention to himself. He summoned his magic, abandoned at the moment of his flight, realizing for the first time that he had almost lost control of it completely, that he had almost given way to his fear. He cloaked himself swiftly, then angled left toward the open plains, a different direction than he had come, a direction in which they would not think to look. If he was discovered and had to fight his way clear, he would be killed. There were too many for him. Too many for any man, Druid or no.