David Farland - Wizardborn

The charging knight held his lance in his right fist, so that Skalbairn attacked from his unprotected flank.

Yet Skalbairn did not swing at the knight, as Gaborn would have. Instead he aimed at the horse, taking off its right leg at the knee.

The mount collapsed, and the rider fell with it. Lightning split from his lance, sizzled to the right, and slammed into Baron Handy of Heredon. The bolt cleaved the man in two. Charred flesh flew from him.

Skalbairn rushed to the fallen warrior, stood above him with battle-ax raised high overhead.

Both men were swallowed in the onrushing wall of dust.

Feykaald watched the wind slam into wagons, send them tumbling. Bits of wooden wheel spokes popped loose while axles screamed from the abuse.

Boxes of goods went rolling away, but the forcibles were not among them.

He pulled up the bottom of his gray burnoose, ran into the wind. Wet leaves struck him in the face. He put his arm up to shelter him from oncoming debris. He had faced desert storms this fierce many times.

For long years he had feigned deafness, weakness. Yet he had some endowments of brawn and stamina to match his hearing, and he put those to use now.

Each box held four thousand forcibles, with a combined weight of five or six hundred pounds. He had packed the boxes himself, knew the contents of each. He’d put the forcibles in canvas bags, so that they could easily be loaded onto a horse.

He lashed his horse to the treasure wagon, leapt onto it, drew his dagger and slashed the bindings that held the canvas cover. It floated off in the wind as if it had taken wing. He quickly pried the lid off one box, set it in the wagonbed. He found the two canvas sacks inside. They were lashed together with a rope.

Lifting five hundred pounds was difficult, even with two endowments of brawn. Grunting and straining, he hefted the bags and managed to sling them over the pommel of his saddle. Later, when he had time, he would lash them properly.

The wind screamed around him like a living thing.

Knowing full well that his likelihood of escape increased dramatically so long as Gaborn did not know of the theft, Feykaald grabbed the lid of the box, shoved it back into place.

But now the storm was upon him, making it almost too dark to see.

He leapt on his mount, turned its back into the wind, and raced off under cover of the gale.

One lone rider thundered toward Gaborn, the rising storm cloud black at his back.

Gaborn recognized Beckhurst by the colors on his shield. He gaped at the man in confusion. Beckhurst had always seemed loyal to House Orden. Sir Langley rushed to cut Beckhurst off.

Gaborn could hear Binnesman shouting or chanting as he struggled to get to Gaborn’s side, but the old wizard had no endowments of his own, and he traveled too slowly.

Gaborn lowered his shield. He felt with his Earth senses. Danger centered on Iome.

Langley ran in front of Beckhurst’s charger, roaring in fury. He swung his warhammer toward the charger’s legs, as Skalbairn had done.

But Beckhurst rode a mighty warhorse, replete with endowments and well trained for battle.

It leapt over Langley and cleared him as effortlessly as if he were a rail fence. Indeed, to Gaborn’s eye for that moment, it almost seemed that the charger flew.

Gaborn raised his shield and set for the charge. Blinding dust rose everywhere, a billowing black front that roared over him.

He reached out with his Earth senses, felt no danger to himself. Only to Iome. He knew where his Chosen were, knew when they were in danger. She had turned and run from him.

“No!” he screamed.

He whirled to see Iome racing toward Binnesman. She had almost reached the wizard.

Jureem ran in front of her, trying to block the onrushing foe with little more than his bulk and a curved dagger.

Beckhurst’s mount leapt again as it brushed past Gaborn.

“Strike!” the Earth commanded.

For a brief second, Gaborn hesitated. He hurled his warhammer. It hurtled end over end through the air, but fell behind its mark.

His heart seemed to freeze in his chest, fearing that his hesitation would cost Iome her life.

The wylde raced forward, staff at the ready. She whirled it forward. The staff nicked the lance, and lightning erupted from it. For a moment, the wylde was bathed in light as ball lightning danced over her skin. But her staff continued its arc, slammed the warhorse in the knees, and the lightning blasted the poor mount.

The horse screamed in pain, stumbled. As the charger fell, the wylde reversed her swing, aiming a blow at the back of Beckhurst’s head.

Beckhurst reared back and hurled his lance.

With his endowments of metabolism, Gaborn saw it all in slow motion. The white lance racing for Iome’s back. “Down!” he shouted.

Jureem had nearly reached Iome, his jeweled dagger drawn. Jureem saw the lance and leapt in front of it. He screamed as the lance struck home, and light exploded all around, burst from Jureem’s feet.

For a moment Gaborn stood in a daze, saw the lance plunge clear through Jureem. The lance took him in the chest, wedged his ribs wide open, and continued on.

Blood rained down as the wylde clubbed Beckhurst with a furious blow, decapitating the man.

The lance slammed into Iome’s right shoulder, and Gaborn saw a flash of red as blood spattered from her robes.

She fell.

The elemental wind roared overhead, lashing. Lightning played at its crown. Horses neighed in terror. Binnesman stood with his staff in hand, singing words of warding against the storm. He touched Iome’s still form with his staff.

And then the elemental was past them, howling in its glory, as if to mock the efforts of puny mortals.

Iome woke with a pain like fire in her shoulder. The camp was in disarray.

Binnesman had her lying on her belly on the ground, or perhaps that was the way she had fallen. She remembered it now, running from the knight, hoping to draw him away from Gaborn, dropping to the ground at Gaborn’s warning, feeling the lance tip slam into her shoulder.

She could not have been unconscious for long. Distantly she could still hear the roaring wind. It raced northeast, toward the mountains.

As quickly as the Darkling Glory’s elemental had struck, it was gone. It left the camp all but destroyed. Horses galloped about, having slipped their tethers in the storm.

Everyone gathered round her, looked on with relief. Binnesman applied some balm to her wound. It felt as sweet to the skin as warm honey would to the tongue.

She groaned in pain, tried to climb up to her hands and knees, and caught a glimpse of bloody corpses nearby. Jureem was not twelve feet off, shielded from her view by a knot of onlookers. She suspected by the fact that no one was kneeling over him that the good servant must have died. She knew that he had died to save her.

“Jureem?” she called, in case he was still alive.

“Don’t move yet,” Binnesman said. “Even the worst shoulder wound often doesn’t hurt as badly as you would think.”

“And Jureem?” Iome asked.

Binnesman shook his head. “Jureem and Sir Handy are both gone.”

The news left her numbed and saddened. She’d known Handy since she was a child. He’d been a shy boy of eight when his father first brought him to court. And Jureem had been an impeccable servant. Iome glanced at her own small wound. The men hadn’t just died to save her. Gaborn had set them as guards. He’d spent his men. “I’m all right. It just grazed me.”

“You’re lucky it didn’t skewer you through the heart,” Binnesman said. “If not for the wylde, I think it would have.”