David Farland - Wizardborn

The knight of Heredon limped back to safety, heading straight for Gaborn. When he reached his own lines, Averan saw his face. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth, and he gasped for every breath. His face was leached as white as linen.

“Sir Hoswell!” Iome said.

Some warriors helped Sir Hoswell to the ground, shouting that his lungs were burst. They laid him on a blanket. Iome got down from her own mount and held his hand. Myrrima rode back from the charge, and had retrieved his horse. Now she sat in the saddle, staring down at him.

At Averan’s back, Binnesman climbed from the saddle, knelt over the dying man. He reached into his pocket, pulled out an herb.

“Chew this,” Binnesman said. “It will make your passing easier.”

But Hoswell shook his head, refusing the herb. “I’m sorry,” Hoswell said between gasping breaths. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” His back arched, and he stared up at Myrrima.

“It’s all right,” Iome said. “You served well. You’ve nothing to be sorry for.”

Sir Hoswell gasped and coughed up some red flecks. He held his bow up, offered it to Myrrima. “Take it. It’s the finest in Heredon.”

Averan had never seen a bow like it. Hoswell held it at arm’s length. The wings of the bow were forged from Heredon’s famed spring steel, but rather than a simple wide band of steel, this bow was made of a long, narrow piece. Many steel bows were short, the better for firing from horseback. But this was two-thirds the length of a longbow. The belly of the bow had a wooden handle bolted through it, ornately carved from oak, and the tips where the bow was strung were capped with similar pieces of oak.

Myrrima reached out hesitantly and took the bow. She did not seem glad, nor did she smile. She stared evenly at the dying knight.

Sir Hoswell began to cough, and blood foamed out of him. Averan turned away.

Beside Averan, Baron Waggit sat on his mount. He had not participated in the charge, had held back with Averan, Binnesman, and Gaborn’s Days. He choked back a sob, and Averan glanced up at him.

She saw horror naked in his eyes. “He—he’s dying? Forever?”

She’d never seen that expression in the face of a man before. She remembered years ago, when her own mother had died, and Brand had come and held her tenderly and told her what had happened. He’d warned her then that it happened to everyone, that there was no escape.

She’d felt that terror then.

She suddenly realized that in some ways, she was older than Waggit. She’d learned about death long ago, as a girl of three. But Waggit had always been incapable of comprehending that death was the end, inescapable and interminable. Lucky Waggit.

“I’m afraid so,” Binnesman said softly, trying to comfort the young man.

Waggit shook his head, as if he could not accept it.

A cheer erupted from Gaborn’s knights.

At first Averan thought they cheered Hoswell, but the cheer had erupted everywhere at once.

She looked across the battlefield.

The reaver horde was turning. The great monsters loped away in their strange rocking gait, running south. Even as they did, there was a subtle change. They formed into seven columns, with mages taking the center.

The warriors around Averan began to mutter. They’d never seen reavers march that way. Averan could remember nothing like it even in reaver experience.

Averan felt uneasy. The reavers had begun changing tactics, adjusting. Her experience warned her that reavers were clever creatures—perhaps even smarter than men. The moment seemed ominous.

Gaborn’s own men turned their mounts, heading away from the battlefield. Binnesman got back on his horse, behind Averan, and for a moment they rode in silence.

Gaborn gave Averan a sideways glance. He smiled. “Congratulations,” he said. “We have our second victory, and in great part we owe it to you.”

It felt gruesome to get such a commendation now, with dead men at their backs.

“I think I shall promote you,” Gaborn said. “Let it be known that Skyrider Averan is now a chancellor to the king.”

It was supposed to be a huge honor. As chancellor, she would be called upon to advise the king whenever he asked. At the age of nine, she was probably the youngest person ever bestowed the title. Averan should have been thrilled.

But she felt confused. The honor seemed hollow.

Averan looked at the fleeing reavers, at knights cheering in the battle line. Then she looked back out over the golden plains beneath the blue bowl of heaven, where reavers lay in mounds like gray stones.

She felt sad.

She realized belatedly that she did not care for a title. It was an honor that a man bestowed upon men, and she felt as if she were separating from mankind. Her calling was to serve the Earth.

For a long time after the baobab tree, Raj Ahten found no water. He raced his camels across the Wastes, sparing nothing in his attempt to catch up to Wuqaz.

There was sand, and more sand, and still sand, and sand piled upon the piled sand. That is how one described the Wastes.

Nothing crawled upon it but a few beetles and small web-footed geckos. All of the lizards had sand-colored backs to hide from predators and white bellies to reflect the desert sun. A few blind shrews lived beneath the sand and came out at night to hunt for scorpions, but there was little else.

Overhead, large sand-colored desert graaks flew in circles, a mile into the air, watching everything that moved. It was not uncommon for the monsters to swoop low and knock a man off his camel, leaving him to die as the camel raced for safety. But the graaks would not dare attack a party as large as this.

The camels had good runes of brawn, stamina, and metabolism burned into their flesh, but Raj Ahten soon grew to suspect that some of their Dedicate camels had died. One camel sat down halfway across the Waste, and would not get up, even when jabbed with a sharp camel prod.

Raj Ahten had no choice but to leave his man there until the camel felt ready to travel again. The invincible drew his warhammer and stood over his mount protectively, watching the sky for graaks.

The vast bed of the White Sea was dry at this time of year, except for a few miles where the water ran little deeper than a camel’s ankles. The receding sea left a salty crust that crunched under the camels’ feet with every step. The wind sweeping across the dry lakebed whipped bits of salt into the eyes of men and camels alike.

Raj Ahten wrapped a rag around his face, and was happy to reach the waters of the White Sea, so named because of the white crust all along its shore. The sparkling amethyst waters were shallow and too salty to drink. But the presence of any water was welcome. No more salt crystals whipped through the air here, and the journey was safe, if slow. Giant crocodiles infested the eastern shores of this inland sea, but here in the west it was too salty even for them.