“I do agree. Alas, though, I do fear me the answer will come in some hateful way.”
“True spoken. We’ll have to keep an eye on him.”
On the morrow morning the Horsekin army lingered in camp. Since Salamander had seen it with his physical eyes, he could scry it out by using the running water of the stream as a focus and thus spare himself the strain of scrying in the body of light. Once he had a clear image of the camp, he sharpened the image and magnified it until it seemed that he hovered some ten feet above.
There he had a stroke of luck. He had seen in the flesh one of the Horsekin priestesses in Zakh Gral, both before and after that fortress had been destroyed. By following her, he could see as clearly and in as much detail as if he stood among the holy women.
Unfortunately, what he couldn’t do was hear. Everything unfolded in silence, just when he desperately wanted to hear their talk. Some of the priestesses looked as grim as death; others openly wept; all of them milled around their special area of the camp and talked with each other in little groups that formed and broke up like autumn leaves swirling on the surface of a stream. He could guess that they were discussing the two ill-omened appearances of their goddess, but what they might have said about them remained beyond him.
Salamander was on the verge of breaking the vision when a messenger came running from the main army’s camp. He knelt to a woman who wore an elaborate headdress—likely the chief priestess, Salamander decided—and spoke briefly. She nodded, then turned and beckoned to the other women. Together, in an orderly crowd, they followed the messenger out to the empty stretch of grassy ground between the camps.
Four Horsekin men, with cloth-of-gold surcoats over their mail, stood waiting for them. They talked at some length, until the head priestess shook her head no. One of the rakzanir began waving his arms as he spoke. From the way that the head priestess stepped back, Salamander could assume that the rakzan was bellowing. A second officer grabbed his arm and calmed him. The chief priestess turned and stalked away with her women following her. The rakzanir returned to the army, talking among themselves. The rakzan who’d lost his temper earlier kept pounding his fist into the palm of the opposite hand.
With a shake of his head, Salamander broke the vision, then got up and walked over to his brother, who was lounging on the ground in a patch of sunlight among the trees.
“We’ve certainly stirred them up,” Salamander said. “The priestesses and the rakzanir are arguing among themselves.”
“Good.” Rori yawned with a show of fangs. “Are you planning on making things worse?”
“I am, indeed, but I need to get ahead of them on the road.”
“Easily done. Get your gear together.”
When Rori and Salamander took to the air, Salamander looked down to see the army lining up for its day’s march in a somewhat different order than before. First came the fighting men, then directly behind them the cluster of priestesses on their white mules. Servants, carts, and slaves formed an untidy mob at the rear as usual. Rori kept circling as the army moved forward, one rank at a time, until the entire cumbersome parade was at last marching down the valley. When Rori flew off to the south, Salamander looked back and noticed that the ranks of servants had fallen some yards behind the main line of march, as if perhaps they followed even more reluctantly than before.
While the western rank of hills remained steep, the eastern range was beginning to lower and flatten out, ultimately to merge with the downs bordering the Northlands plateau. The army was drawing closer to Cerr Cawnen. Soon they’d reach easy terrain and could march faster. If Salamander was going to disrupt them, he would need to do so that very day. When he spotted another rocky outcrop to the west, he yelled at Rori to land. The silver wyrm banked a wing, soared over the outcrop then landed on the hillside just behind the boulders.
“My thanks, brother of mine,” Salamander said. “This looks like a splendid spot for my final thrust. If I can hurl confusion, commotion, and stupefaction into their ranks, then I shall buy another day of safety for Cerr Cawnen.”
“You do all that,” Rori said, rumbling softly, “and I’ll stand ready to pick off a horse. I’m hungry.”
“Then if the gods allow, we shall gain at the same time both a victory and a meal.”
A cloud of dust approached from the north, the signal that the army was arriving. Salamander retrieved his leather bottle of water from his saddlebags, then lay down in the shade of the rocks and went into trance. He summoned the Alshandra image with the falcata, transferred his consciousness to it, then rose into the etheric. As he hovered above the twisted, throbbing mass of red-and-gold auras, he saw the priestesses clearly, their silver auras tinged with the blue of doubt and worry as they rode upon their white mules.
On the tide of Aethyr, Salamander drifted down toward the women below. They saw the image and halted, turning their mules out of line, then raised their chant. The main body of the army also came to a halt, but in a disorganized mob that spread across the entire area between the hills to the west and the river bordering them on the east. The front ranks traveled nearly a quarter of a mile onward before they realized what was happening behind them and turned back.
Salamander swung his falcata with a flourish and pointed north. He scowled, danced back and forth, then floated over the priestesses and let himself drift northward, still holding his saber high. The priestesses turned their mules and followed, while the swarm of servants and slaves tried to get out of their way. Some trailed after the priestesses, others merely ran to one side or another.
Salamander glanced back. His silver cord had stretched out as far as he dared take it. He sailed up higher and began to drift back toward his body just as a troop of horsemen broke away from the army and came charging down the valley, waving their falcatas and screaming at the priestesses to stop. The magnetic effluent from so much iron, both in their weapons and their armor, pulled at Salamander’s silver cord and made it twist. As it unfurled, it became dangerously thin, then swung back and forth as they rode under the image and past.
Close to snapping—Salamander rose up fast and barely in time. He soared back to the outcrop of rock and his body, lying in the shade. As he hovered over it, he saw Rori launching himself into the air, but he had no time to watch his brother from the etheric. The silver cord had weakened until it appeared as a trail of mist, no longer a cord. Salamander slid down and slammed into his body so fast that he shrieked aloud with pain.
Freed from his control, the Alshandra image drifted away toward the valley and the worshipers whose devotion would feed it. Salamander could do nothing to stop it. Sitting up took the last of his strength. He leaned against the rough rocks behind him and panted for breath while he listened to the distant screams and shrieks from the valley below. The water bottle lay to hand. He drank as much as he could get down, but the taste seemed wrong, somewhat sweet and meaty. When he wiped his hand across his mouth, his fingers came away bloody. His abrupt return to his body had burst a vein in his nose.
Salamander staggered to his feet. By clinging to a boulder he could stand and look down. The entire army was milling about in confusion. Horses reared and kicked. A few riders lay on the ground. Alshandra’s image had disappeared, but the priestesses and the supply train had both withdrawn some hundreds of yards back the way they’d come. The priestesses, still mounted on their white mules, had drawn themselves up like a wall between the servants and the main body, as if to protect them.
Wingbeats drummed in the sky. With a dead horse hanging from his massive claws, Rori swept down and landed on solid ground, a good distance from the edge of the outcrop. He laid the horse down, then waddled back to Salamander.
“What happened to your face?” he said.
“Carelessness,” Salamander said. “It’s just a nosebleed.”
“You have two black eyes as well.”
“Oh? Well, those came up fast! Doubtless I’ll have bruises all over me by the morrow. I need to soak in co
ld water. That stream will—”
“No, you need to get onto my back. A few of the cursed Meradan have found their courage, and they’re climbing up the hill below. I’m going to roll this horse down on top of them, and then we’re flying off.”
Salamander stuffed his water bottle down the front of his shirt then clambered onto his brother’s back. Hanging on to the rough rope harness made his hands ache and in spots, bleed. Rori flew up into the air then swooped down to pick up the dead horse. As he circled up with the prey in his claws, Salamander caught glimpses of some twenty determined Horsekin warriors, falcatas drawn and ready, struggling on foot through the tall grass of the hillside. From a good height Rori dropped the horse onto the steepest angle of the hill. It bounced, burst open with a shower of blood and spray of guts, then slid straight into the squad.
Curses rose up as those it hit fell, one on top of another. In a tangle of arms and legs, they rolled back down the grassy slope, furious, disgraced, but probably mostly unharmed. Their companions scrambled back down after them. Rori flew off fast, heading west while Salamander held on as tightly as he could. His muscles, shocked by the impact of his etheric double, were beginning to stiffen. The aches turned into pain.
By the time they reached the meadow below the dragons’ lair, late that afternoon, Salamander ached so badly that he tumbled rather than slid from his brother’s back. He lay panting in the grass but managed to sit up when Devar glided down to join them. When Salamander looked up, he could see Medea and Mezza peering down from the ledge above.
“Is Uncle Ebañy hurt?” Devar said to Rori in Elvish.
“No,” Salamander broke in. “Or rather, yes, I am hurt, but not in any imminent danger of dying or suchlike. What I need to do is get my gear from your father’s back so he can go off and hunt for supper.”
Devar allowed Salamander to lean upon him for support. With his help, Salamander managed to untie his bedroll and saddlebags from Rori’s rope harness. Moving eased his muscles enough for him to refill his water bottle from the spring and spread out his blankets in the shade of the tower.
“I’m going to go hunt now,” Rori said. “I’ll fetch some venison, and you can have a share.”
“My thanks,” Salamander said. “You needn’t fear my leaving without you.”
Rori rumbled, then leaped into the air and flew with a drumming of wings. As soon as Salamander lay down his blankets, he fell asleep. In dreams his highly trained mind could ignore his aching body and sail back to the Horsekin army. Although the dream was so vivid and detailed that Salamander could take control of it, he doubted its accuracy out of simple caution.
He saw an army disintegrating into an armed mob. All along the river stood clots of dismounted men, their horses still saddled and bridled, their tents and gear lying on the ground. The rakzanir in their gold surcoats and the Keepers of Discipline in their red worked their way through, shouting orders, cracking whips, drawing weapons. He watched one rakzan kill a man who shouted back at him. One angry swing of the rakzan’s falcata tore the fellow’s head half-off his body.
Salamander abruptly woke, revolted by what he’d just seen, and sat up with some difficulty. For a few moments he found it hard to remember where he was, but the sharp vinegar smell of dragon brought his consciousness back to the meadow. Devar was crouching nearby, watching him.
“Are you truly well, Uncle Ebañy?”
“Well enough, my thanks. A bit hungry. Are you?”
“Very, but Da will bring us back something good.” Devar spoke with perfect confidence. “He always does.”
Salamander felt a stab of guilt that he and his fellow dweomermasters were going to take Devar’s father away from him forever. He had the vague thought that he might bring the young dragon back to the grasslands when that happened, if, of course, Dallandra could lift the dweomer upon Rori. He put family matters firmly out of his mind. Such worries needed to wait until the people of Cerr Cawnen had made their escape.
“I have to scry,” Salamander said. “Do you know what that is?”
“I do. Mama does it sometimes. I’ll be quiet, I promise.”
“Well and good, then.” So! Salamander thought. That wretched Arzosah knows a fair bit more dweomer than she’s ever admitted.
Overhead a few wisps of clouds were sailing in from the east. Although the sun had set behind the western hills, casting the meadow and the tower into shadow, the sky above still shone brightly with blue. Salamander lay down on his back and fixed his gaze upon them as he invoked the powers of Air. The vision of the army—a vision he could trust, this time—built up fast.
He saw immediately that his earlier dream had shown him truth. The army had spread out into a wide but thin scatter of men and horses. The rakzanir and the Keepers still stalked among them, but now the Keepers carried long spears to threaten those who disobeyed with the worst punishment of all. Salamander saw, in fact, one man already stripped naked and impaled, still alive and screaming, down by the river. Although Salamander couldn’t hear him, he could read the victim’s agony from his contorted face. A few more examples such as that, and no doubt the rakzanir would regain control of their men.
The priestesses were another matter. They had withdrawn a good half a mile away from the main army and taken many of the servants and supply carts with them. As he watched, Salamander saw a troop of some hundred fighting men ride up. His heart pounded—what were they going to do to the women? Nothing, as it turned out, but join them. Their leader knelt before the head priestess, who laid her hands on his head in blessing. A few at a time, other men slipped away from the army and took refuge among the white dresses and white mules of Alshandra’s Elect.
Although he wanted to see more, Salamander’s exhaustion cost him the vision. He returned to normal sight to find the clouds above dyed pink by the sunset off to the west. Devar still crouched nearby, but just as Salamander sat up again, they both heard the drumming of wings, a slow booming in the air as the burdened Rori flew back with two deer, one in his front paws, the other dangling from his mouth.
“Dinner!” Devar leaped up and with a rustle unfolded his wings.
“You go eat,” Salamander said. “I need to find firewood so I can cook my share.”
“Medea got you some. It’s in the tower.”
Devar bunched his muscles, stretched his wings, and leaped into the air. He landed on the ledge above a moment before his father dropped the two deer upon it. Medea and Mezza came waddling out of the cave, chattering in Dragonish, to join the meal. Rori landed among them and began apportioning the venison.
Salamander got to his feet—slowly—and staggered to the empty doorway of the tower. Inside, leaning against the wall, stood an entire dead pine tree, crisp with orange needles. Fortunately—since Salamander had only a small hatchet in his gear—a number of branches had fallen off, and a reasonable amount of splinters and dead bark lay around as well. Salamander got the impression that Medea had simply dropped the tree into the roofless tower from a great height.
Still, it made good fuel. Salamander had a decent fire going by the time Rori glided down to the meadow. His brother laid a mangled-looking haunch of venison, still wrapped in its original owner’s hide, down in the grass.
“It’s a bit gnawed around the edges,” Rori said. “I can’t handle a knife, of course, to disjoint anything cleanly. My apologies.”
“No need. I’ve had naught but soda bread to eat for days, and this will be splendid stewed, gnawed or not.”
Salamander skinned the haunch, then cut down to the tender meat by the bone. He set chunks to simmering in his cook pot, then tried roasting a slice threaded on a green stick. The result was edible if tough. After he ate, he could think of nothing but sleep. He forced himself to stay awake until the rest of the meat had cooked, then put out his fire and lay down.
In the morning the rising sun woke Salamander. He had to struggle to sit up; his sore muscles had turned so stiff in the night that he could barely get to his
knees. When he looked down at his arms and hands, he realized they’d turned a mottled red and purple. The bruises had come out in the night, transferred slowly from his etheric double, unlike the normal, immediate bruises caused by physical blows. That his face had suffered damage so quickly showed him just how much danger he’d been in. He shuddered retroactively and reminded himself that he’d survived.
Eventually, he got to his feet. When he looked up at the cave, he saw no sign of the dragons. He took an experimental step toward the spring and found that he ached in every joint, but the more he moved, the more he was capable of moving. By the time he’d made soda bread and eaten it with cold stewed venison, he felt restored enough to scry.
In the upwelling spring, by the powers of Water, Salamander summoned images of the Horsekin army, or, as it turned out, of the two armies. The priestesses had gathered several hundred fighting men around them, as well as a good many servants and slaves. As Salamander watched, this gathering of the devout mounted up. With the chief priestess on her white mule at their head, they started off—north. They were leaving the main body and marching off the way they’d come, heading home.
Grinning like a fiend, Salamander turned his attention to the main body, which was also preparing to move out. Most of the fighting force remained under the control of the rakzanir, though they were leaving some twenty men behind them, dead on the long spears, the price of restoring order. In a reasonable show of discipline, the army began to ride southward, still intent on reaching Cerr Cawnen, or so Salamander could assume.
Salamander broke the vision, then used the spring as a focus to contact Dallandra. Her image floated upon the water and smiled at him.
“I’m glad to hear from you,” she said. “I’ve been worried, and—wait!” The smile disappeared. “Ye gods, what happened to your face?”
“I was forced to rejoin my physical body a bit hastily,” Salamander said. “But I reached it, and it’s still here intact, more or less.”