The Golden Shield of IBF (8 page)

“We’re going to stay at this miller’s hut place, then?”

“It is too far to travel on foot, and too dangerous a journey at night,” she informed him. “I have more than enough magic to make a warm fire for us, and you needn’t know how to fight with a sword to use my sword to get us more wood that might be lying about.”

“Sounds like a good plan, except for one thing.” Al’An laughed. Swan liked the sound. “I don’t eat breakfast.”

“Neither do I. What is breakfast?”

“The first meal of the day.”

“Oh.”

“And, I didn’t eat any lunch. And, on my body at least, if my wristwatch isn’t screwed up, it’s after nine. I’m hungry. Can your magic make us anything to eat?”

Now, Swan laughed. Men were always hungry, at least as far as she was able to discern. She would ask him about the “wristwatch” word later, unless her language spell provided her with its meaning. As to food, she told him, “I make food appear for myself whenever I am hungry. I have the magical energy to make enough for two.”

“Considering how long it’s been since I’ve eaten, any chance that magic of yours can rustle up seconds?”

Swan had no idea what he was talking about specifically, but assumed that he was concerned with the quantity of the food that she could provide. “There will be plenty, Al’An.”

As they’d walked, she’d been thinking, trying to fathom what to do after the immediate needs of shelter and reuniting with the Company of Mir were attended to. Despite her mother’s vastly stronger magical abilities, magic was still magic. To summon, then direct, then dispel the Mist of Oblivion, her mother had used an inconceivable amount of magical energy. And, because of this, her mother’s power would be drastically depleted for at least a day, likely longer. Much of this potentially valuable time was already lost. More would be lost while they rested for the night—and she produced food to fill Al’An s empty stomach.

But there would still be some space of time left in which she might be able to do something which would later prove useful against her mother.

The question was, what?

They were as near to the boundary as she needed to be to find the track, and the nearer they approached the deeper were the drifts of snow. Swan told Al’An that and they began searching for the track...

Lurking on the crest of a knoll in the darkness of the wood, the blackness of his cloak obscured by the whiteness of the snow fallen over it—he had remained all but motionless for a considerable time—Moc’Dar at last spied not only one item to capture his attention, but two.

There was movement in the deep snowdrifts along the boundary of the wood, two figures, one so tall that it had to be male, and the other, considerably less broad at the shoulder and a head shorter, almost certainly a tall female.

There was a development of interest along the track, as well.

From the hand of the figure which Moc’Dar presumed to be a woman, there emanated a light, blue-white, illuminating the couple’s steps. A similar light shone from the rutted, drifted track, approaching nearer and nearer.

Moc’Dar rasped to his Yeoman Spellbreaker, “Use your pitiful magic to second-sight me what is behind the light moving along the track.”

“I am not good at the second-sight, my Captain. I have had very little training in its use.”

Moc’Dar wished his face could have been visible to the Yeoman Spellbreaker huddled in the snow beside him. But, Moc’Dar was fully uniformed, his features hidden beneath the skintight leather battle mask of the Sword of Koth. “Try very hard, boy, as if your life were to depend upon the outcome,” Moc’Dar urged him, laughing grimly.

“I, uh—I see riders ahorse. Five, my Captain.”

“Very good, Yeoman. And, how are they armed?”

There was a pause, a long one, then, “Each has sword and dagger. One has a ball-headed mace. There is a great sword lashed to the saddle of one of the men. I see a poleaxe. There is a crossbow and there is a longbow with two quivers of arrows.”

“And how are the horses?”

“Strong seeming, fresh enough.”

Moc’Dar was fairly pleased. “Now, to the couple there moving along the boundary. See the face of the shorter one for me and tell me what manner of object is ahand to the taller figure. A weapon or what?”

“Yes, my Captain. I will try.”

To try was never good enough, because in trying one accepted the potential for failure as being on a par with the potential for success. Moc’Dar would kill this Yeoman Spellbreaker, perhaps. For the moment, there were more pressing matters and he would reserve his judgment.

“The Queen Sorceress protect me!”

“What makes you take the name of the Mistress General of the Horde in vain, boy!?”

The Yeoman Spellbreaker’s voice trembled as he replied, “I saw her once, once only, but I could take my oath that when the wind shifted the cowl of her hood for a moment that I second-sighted the Virgin Enchantress, Daughter Royal, my Captain!”

Moc’Dar said nothing. If the boy was right, the boy would live. If not, the boy would die. So far, the boy seemed to be doing well enough that he might, indeed, survive the moment.

“The man with her, Yeoman. Second-sight me what you can tell of him. Before, I asked if a weapon is in his hand.”

Moc’Dar waited.

The young Yeoman Spellbreaker began to speak, his hushed tones barely audible over the keening of the wind. “If it is a weapon, my Captain, it is unlike any that I have seen. It is some strange device. I know not what.”

“What do you see of the man holding it?”

“He is tall, like you, my Captain. Beneath his great cape, I thought that I glimpsed odd raiment covering his legs. He moves powerfully through the snowdrifts. The woman with him holds tightly to his elbow.”

If the Virgin Enchantress had not been consumed by the Mist of Oblivion, what was she doing so long afterward—a full day—tramping about near the boundary of the wood with a strange man beside her? This man, Moc’Dar mused, might prove very interesting to question.

With Moc’Dar, not counting the Yeoman Spellbreaker who was borrowed from an ordinary unit within the Horde, were twelve from the Sword of Koth, more than enough men to handle five from the Company of Mir (doubtlessly the origin of the five riders approaching along the track). But the presence of the Virgin Enchantress, with her very powerful magic, altered the equation considerably.

Did he dare attack, or should he follow his orders to the rune and only observe?

The Queen Sorceress, when personally charging him with this foray, had not said to avoid engagement, only that his purpose was to closely watch the plain where lately the castle of the Virgin Enchantress had been.

If he could strike quickly, Moc’Dar reasoned, he could capture alive at least one, likely two from the Company of Mir. Should his own methods of persuasion fail somehow to loosen the captives’ tongues, the Queen Sorceress’s ministrations would not fail. Success here could lead to the speedy and permanent obliteration of the Company of Mir. If he did not act, it was inevitable that the Virgin Enchantress and her enigmatic companion would join with the five riders—perhaps this was a planned rendezvous—and all hope of seizing a prisoner for interrogation would be gone.

Moc’Dar’s decision was made.

In a future time, Moc’Dar mused, there would be some magical spell much like the second-sight, but one which would enable a commander to talk with those who served under him while they were positioned for battle, a way in which whispered words might travel through the very air.

For now, however, there was the Action Cord. Carefully, disturbing as little as possible the snow camouflaging him, Moc’Dar unwound the black cord from the spike he’d driven into the snowy ground when he’d first taken his position. Moc’Dar tugged on the Action Cord, a series of long and short pulses, the Action Cord Code that each new recruit to the Queen’s Sword of Koth had to commit to memory within a single night or suffer a hideous death the next morning. Moc’Dar applauded the skillful use of subtle incentives to bring out the best in a man.

The message he sent read, “This is Moc’Dar. Every second Sword of Koth joins me beneath the Ka’B’Oo tree at the edge of the boundary near the track. Move with silence and stealth. No fireswords. Enemy forces nearby. Ends.” Moc’Dar relashed the Action Cord to its stake.

Moc’Dar’s lieutenant, Bog’Luc, would hold to his operational orders and hold this position, continuing to observe. “Go to Bog’Luc, Yeoman,” Moc’Dar ordered. “With stealth. Inform the lieutenant of the details you have reported with the second-sight. Serve Bog’Luc well. Go!”

“Yes, my Captain.”

The Yeoman Spellbreaker was up and moving with surprising rapidity. Moc’Dar would have laughed at him had there been the time. Instead, he too was up and moving through the wood, battleaxe in hand. A firesword’s red gleaming steel would alert the Company of Mir.

Moc’Dar reached the small bower overhung by the enormous branches of the Ka’B’Oo, the track lying only a few warblades beyond it. Soundlessly, first one, then another, then soon all six of the Sword of Koth he had summoned were with him there.

His voice low, Moc’Dar rapidly issued his orders. “You three will cross the track. Five men from the
Company of Mir, all ahorse, well-armed. They move along the track beyond the glow of light. They are perhaps five lancethrows back. Move with speed and stealth. Standard ambush pattern at contact after confirmation. Be wary, lest the Virgin Enchantress, who is about some distance from here along the boundary with the wood, should hear and alert them with her magic. I want prisoners who can be made to talk. Questions?”

There were none.

“Remember, axes only and silence at all cost. Be about it then, Sword of Koth!”

The three he had designated to cross the track moved first, disappearing soundlessly among the trees. Moc’Dar gauged the time that it would take them, then summoned the three who remained with him to follow him, paralleling the track, deeper into the wood, toward the light from the five riders...

Erg’Ran cautioned his four companions, “Weapons close and ready, lads. We near the boundary.”

There was no way to exactly judge the distance, one stretch of the track looking so very much like another, but he had a good feel for the time which had so far passed along the track. Based on that Erg’Ran gauged them to be under four lancethrows from the boundary of the wood and plain.

Gar’Ath was somewhere out there in the snowy darkness, perhaps overseeing their progress, perhaps observing a Sword of Koth scouting party. If there were such a force lying in wait for them, Gar’Ath would warn his companions, or surely die in the trying.

When Erg’Ran chopped off his foot, his balance in the wielding of a weapon had somehow been altered for the worse. In his youth, he was a fair hand with a sword, although his skills approached not at all those of Gar’Ath. No one’s did. Since the loss of his foot, Erg’Ran (although he still wore a sword) had taken to using the very implement by means of which he’d lost his foot. He carried an axe. Its shaft, carved from the trunk of a stout Ka’B’Oo, was just less than five spans in length. Its head, of the finest hand-wrought steel, measured two spans from the tip of the dorsal spike to the outermost arc of the curved blade.

Many men would name their weapons, but Erg’Ran did not. It was his axe, and that was all. He longed for the day when its only purpose would be that of a decoration over the hearth of some pleasantly remote cottage.

They continued along the track, Erg’Ran riding at the little columns head, periodically craning his neck to reassure himself that the rearmost man—young Bin’Ah—had not been taken by surprise.

So far, there was no cause for concern, and this concerned Erg’Ran quite a bit. It would be impossible to imagine the Queen Sorceress not sending out a scouting party. So, where were her minions?

As Erg’Ran looked back once more, the answer came to him: Bin’Ah was swept from his stout red mare and into the shadows, the gleam of an axe blade caught for an instant in the light from the globe.

“They attack!” Erg’Ran shouted to the remaining three of the company, wheeling his horse about so suddenly that the ordinarily sure-footed creature nearly went down under him.

Sword of Koth swept at them from the shadows, four of them, axes only. Why did they not use their fireswords? There would have to be a reason, but there was no time to worry it. A giant of a man, black cowled hood over black battle mask, charged toward Erg’Ran, axe swinging for the legs of Erg’Ran’s mare.

This was a captive hunt, not a murder raid!

Erg’Ran’s axe was just as quick, and stronger, its long downstroke hesitating only an instant as it severed the other axes shaft, the axe head flying. Its flat struck hard against Erg’Ran’s right thigh and he winced with pain. The giant Sword of Koth who’d wielded the axe threw his body weight against the mare. The horse fell, Erg’Ran spilling from his saddle, nearly pinned.

Unhorsed, his axe flown from his fist, Erg’Ran drew back, reaching in desperation for his sword.

The giant Sword of Koth had the greatsword carried by Fo’Len only an instant earlier. How he had gotten it was no mystery. Another Sword of Koth stood over the fallen Fo’Len, axe dripping blood, readying for a second, killing strike.

The greatsword swung and stopped, a span only from Erg’Ran’s throat. “Yield, old man!”

There was the whooshing sound of steel against air, then the crack of bone. The head of the Sword of Koth who had been about to finish Fo’Len separated from its body, flew into the darkness. “I don’t think he’s wanting to do what you suggest, you evil black-masked bastard!” In the same breath as his words, Gar’Ath’s sword swung into the light, interposed itself between the greatsword and Erg’Ran’s throat, arced upward along the greatsword’s blade flat and forced the greatsword up and away. “Why don’t you try me, hmm? Maybe you’ll have better luck than your headless friend did.”

“I am Moc’Dar, Captain Leader of the Third Company Sword of Koth, Elite Guard to the Mistress General of the Horde. You should know the name of the man who kills you!”

“That’s an awful lot you’re asking a simple country lad like myself to remember, Captain. But, if it’s proper manners to know the name of the man who kills you, then I’d better tell you my name, and rather quickly, too!” As Gar’Ath spoke, he lunged, Moc’Dar’s stolen greatsword making to parry the thrust, but Gar’Ath’s sword was not where Moc’Dar had thought it would be.