David Farland - Wizardborn

Borenson rolled to his knees and began to crawl over the rough stubble. He could see nothing, could hear only the vague din of battle—the screams of horses, the hissing of reavers as they pounded over the plain.

He scrambled forward, struggled to hold his breath. The reaver mage’s spell made his ears more than just ring; he’d lost his balance, and could do little more than crawl.

His eyes burned like fire. Tears rolled from them. His sinuses ached as if he’d inhaled scalding smoke.

The pain was excruciating. He’d smelled curses like these at Carris, but he’d never taken one full in the face, fifty feet downwind from a mage.

Borenson clambered through the stubble as doggedly as he could. He reasoned that if he was going to be the target of a reaver’s wrath, at least he would be a moving target.

After a few yards, he exhaled his burning lungs, swallowed a fresh breath. The stench had lessened, yet even now it was too much. He vomited his breakfast into the grass and struggled on.

Ten yards farther, he put his sleeve over his nose, tried inhaling again. The stench seemed to cling to his lungs like pitch. It brought racking coughs. He staggered up and ran.

Is this how my father died? he wondered.

He felt a terrible pity for the man.

In less than a minute he turned, blinking at the battle lines, fiercely wiping tears from his face with the back of his hand.

He strained to see. He’d reached a small rise, a hundred yards from the reavers’ trail. Everywhere up and down the battle line, Runelords fought reavers tooth and nail. Few of the knights had lances. Most had dismounted and now rushed in to fight with battle-axes and warhammers.

The lords had decimated the reavers’ western flank. Many reavers fled east to escape the slaughter.

At the rear of the reaver lines, Frowth giants roared as they waded among the enemy, swinging huge staves, knocking the reavers’ legs from under them. Runelords then dispatched the wounded beasts.

Myrrima was nowhere to be seen. Five reavers lay clumped on the battlefield where he had killed his reaver, including a huge scarlet sorceress emblazoned with runes.

His piebald mare galloped toward him, dragging its reins.

He leapt onto its back.

The reaver that he’d targeted lay dead. Usually when a man lanced a reaver, the monster would flail at the lance, trying to draw it out, thereby snapping it. But by a stroke of good fortune, Borenson’s lance was still intact. He rode to it, his mare whinnying and throwing her head in fear. He drew out the shaft.

Armed now, he charged into the furrow of the reavers’ trail. A dozen reavers lay dead or dying.

He reached the far side of the trail, spotted Myrrima nearly half a mile away.

Reavers were fleeing west by the thousands, trying to escape the Runelords. Borenson could see a scarlet sorceress trundling over the plains with Myrrima in pursuit, Hoswell trying to keep up. She spurred her horse faster, charged it from behind, and buried an arrow in the joint under its right leg. The leg spasmed, and the sorceress faltered, skidding on her belly. She whirled and came up roaring, bringing a staff of purest crystal to bear.

Vile energies seemed to pulse through the staff, and it blazed. A cloud of green smoke burst from it.

Myrrima reined in her mount just as Hoswell let an arrow fly into the monster’s sweet triangle. The mage flipped to her side, pawing at her wound.

Myrrima and Hoswell wheeled away from the green fog, clinging to their saddles. They hastened back toward Borenson. The mage dropped her staff and rolled, as if trying to dislodge an attacker. Then she just flailed her huge arms as she died.

Borenson reined his mount.

A barbarian from Internook rode up beside him, watched Myrrima with unabashed admiration. The man had a sealskin coat, and yellow cornbraids hanging from his sideburns. He’d painted the left half of his face orange. He bore a huge, wide-bladed battle-ax in a style that his folk called a “reaper.” It was purpled in inky reaver gore.

The barbarian offered Borenson a silver flask, nodded at Myrrima. “If I had a hound with half her heart, I’d never hunt again. I’d say the word, and it would drag bears home for dinner.”

Borenson took a swig from the flask, found that it was mead. It tasted like warm piss, but at least it rinsed the vomit from his mouth.

“Aye,” he said. He felt an unnamable something, an unreasonable pride. He felt proud of Myrrima.

Warriors began to cheer. The charge had been an overwhelming success. The remainder of the horde fled south, redoubling speed.

Myrrima rode back, dark eyes flashing. She looked euphoric. “I ran out of arrows!”

He’d seen her quiver when she rode into battle. She’d had at least three dozen. Suddenly he looked at the dozens of dead reavers lying around all in a knot. While he’d managed only a single kill, Myrrima and Sir Hoswell had carved a swath.

Myrrima doesn’t understand me at all, he thought. Myrrima wanted his love, and like nearly all women, she thought him incapable of ever loving more than one woman at a time.

It was strange. She talked about how warriors were not really in touch with their feelings, and how she wanted that from a man. But it was a lie.

She really wanted him to have strong feelings for her, yet cut off any desires for other women.

But it seemed to Borenson that women were like food laid out in a feast. One woman might be a satisfying loaf of bread, another an intoxicating wine, a third as sustaining as a boar’s ham, a fourth as sweet as a tart.

Who would want to eat only one single course at a feast? No one. And if a man would not devote himself to eating one thing for a single feast, how could a person ask him to devote a lifetime to eating that one food alone?

That was the rub. Every woman wants to think of herself as a whole feast. Would a loaf of bread say to its master, don’t eat that mince pie? Or would the wine demand, don’t eat the buttered parsnips?

The notion was absurd.

His feelings for Saffira weren’t gone. They’d never go. She was an intoxicating wine. He’d never desired a woman as acutely as he had Saffira, and suspected that he never would again. The feelings he’d had for her weren’t mere lust. Her endowments of glamour aroused a sense of devotion, a need to serve her that was so powerfully compelling that it caused physical pain.

That was the secret and the power of glamour.

While Saffira was alive, he’d been in torment, entangled by the need to serve her. He’d felt...that he approached a unique singleness of purpose, a form of purity.

He’d always wanted to feel that way about someone.

Yet while he was charmed by Saffira’s beauty and enthralled by her glamour, he hadn’t really respected her. Thus, he hadn’t been able to give his heart to her fully.

His feelings for Myrrima on the other hand were growing in odd directions. His lust for her paled to insignificance when compared to his feelings for Saffira.

But his respect for her was taking on immense proportions. He sensed that while Saffira might have been wine, Myrrima was the meat of the meal. She was the one that could sustain him.

Thus as she rode back from killing the reaver mage, and the big barbarian at his side offered his highest words of praise, Borenson felt more than proud of Myrrima, he felt kind respect that he’d never felt for a woman, mingled with a sense of foreboding.

To the south, a battle horn blew, calling men to regroup. He looked toward the sound. Men shouted in warning, ran toward the south. Frowth giants roared.