David Farland - Wizardborn

The night seemed perfectly still.

Until a wailing cry arose that was like nothing human. Goosepimples formed on her arms immediately, and the sound sent a shiver down her spine. Her horse pawed the ground nervously, and Borenson’s danced forward.

On a windswept hillside not a mile away, she saw the gray ghost light of a wight—incredibly thin and tall. At first glance, it seemed vaguely human in shape, until one made out its impossible form. Its gangling arms were as thin as branches, a crepuscular white in color, like a warty fungal growth, that ended in scythelike talons. Its four legs were also inhumanly long and slender. The rearmost legs were attached to flaring hips that tilted up like a grasshoppers’, with an inverted knee. But the rear hips were set no more than two feet from the forelegs, so that it squatted oddly. Its narrow skull tapered so that the protracted muzzle looked almost like a bill. The flaring at the back of the skull was not from bone, but from philia.

Though from a great distance one could almost mistake it for a human in shape, the beast was far more closely related to a reaver than a human.

A Toth.

Myrrima’s heart hammered in her throat. Sweat spilled down her forehead. She dared not move, lest she attract its attention.

The Toth enchanters from beyond the Carroll Sea were all but legend now, and most of their specters had faded. This could only be the shade of a powerful sorcerer.

Water and cold iron wouldn’t be enough to ward it. Only a great wizard might drive the monster away.

The wight stood upon the hillside, its head tilted upward, as if it were a hound tasting the air. As it did, the philia hanging like a thick beard beneath its long jaws quivered. It swayed on its legs, an incredibly graceful gesture, then went striding northwest with a determined gait.

He’s caught the scent of something, Myrrima realized. And given that I’m riding from the north, it could be me.

She was about to leap on her horse when Borenson stopped her.

Almost immediately she heard hoofbeats. A rider came galloping along the road behind them, whipping his mount with his reins.

A heavy warhorse charged past, its cloaked rider hunched low in the saddle, wheezing in terror. She heard the muted ching of studded mail. Even the heavy sheepskin slippers that quieted the horse’s pounding hooves couldn’t silence it completely.

Muyyatin. And the wight was after the assassin.

The only problem was, she was hiding in these woods too. The wight wouldn’t care who it caught first.

Which do you want to risk, she asked herself, Death from an assassin, or death from the wight of a Toth?

Borenson decided for her. He gouged his horse’s flanks with his heels and was gone.

Myrrima reined her mount around. She kicked his flanks harder than she’d wanted, and the stallion lurched beneath her in a dead run.

It was nearly all that she could do to hang on. She grabbed her steel bow anyway, hoping against hope that its iron spear tip might keep the wight at bay.

The force horse galloped under the trees. Behind her, a quarter mile back, Myrrima heard that inhuman cry. It was not a wail of sorrow, but more of an ululating shriek, like the sound an eagle makes as it stoops for the kill.

Her force horse redoubled its speed in blind panic, and Myrrima bent low in the saddle, clinging tightly. Borenson’s mount set the pace ahead. His robes flapped behind him.

She came up on a strait where the trees thinned. She spared a glance backward.

Her blood froze in her veins. The wight was leaping toward her on incredibly long legs. It glowed with its own inner light so that she could see it clearly now, only a couple hundred yards behind. Its skin shone pale as polished ivory, and its huge eyes glowed a deep, deep crimson. Upon its arms, faint blue runes burned, ancient wards against death. Philia swayed from its narrow chin like a beard, and scythelike teeth glimmered in its lipless mouth. It made grasping motions with its right paw, as if grabbing for her. Its paws were incredibly long, each with three talons that had many joints.

“Fly!” she shouted at her mount, and the force horse redoubled its effort again, shooting through the shadowed copses, leaving the wight to flounder in its wake. Her beast had four endowments of metabolism, and two of brawn. With those endowments it could attain incredible speeds. Given the choice, she’d not have dared a run like this even in daylight.

Myrrima suspected that she was racing at eighty miles an hour when she heard Borenson’s horse stumble.

He was galloping through a copse ahead when its forehoof clipped a root with a report like a lance shattering.

As the beast floundered, Myrrima’s first thought was for her husband.

He’s as good as dead, she thought. Yet she saw Borenson jump or fall free of the saddle, roll to the grass.

Myrrima reined her own mount, leapt from her saddle while the horse continued to run. She tried to land on her feet, but they slipped from beneath her on the slick road and she fell on her right hip. She skidded over some roots or rocks, then flipped onto her chest.

Pain wracked her, surging from hip and arm.

She climbed to her feet, ignoring the agony. Her horse was gone. But during the fall she’d managed to cling to her bow.

She spat on the iron spear tip. Water and cold iron, she thought hopefully, the same as she’d used against the Darkling Glory.

A shriek sounded as she looked up.

The wight was nearly upon her, mouth gaping as if to swallow. It was too late to stand still like a terrified rabbit, too late to hope that it might pass her by.

She lunged with her bow, sent its spear tip into the sweet triangle between the monster’s eyes.

The Toth shrieked, and there was a blinding flash. Invisible shards of ice seemed to fly through the air, sending pinpricks of cold that rushed through her.

Myrrima stared at the Toth. Its runic death wards suddenly blazed into blue fire, and for a brief second she had a vision: she thought she stared into a blinding haze, and in that light she saw warriors dressed in the ancient mode, with rounded helms and round shields. They surrounded the Toth on all sides, and plunged their spears into its flanks. She could hear them shouting, “Ahten! Ahten da gaspeilten!”

The vision faded, and Myrrima was thrown backward by the icy blast. The world went bitter cold. She’d never faced such cold.

Myrrima felt as if a glory hammer had slammed into her chest. Every single muscle in her body ached. In a daze she struggled to sit up, but her head reeled too much, and she fell backward.

Borenson grabbed her, picking her head up. “Are you alive? Can you hear me?”

“Wha—?” Myrrima managed to blurt.

His breath steamed in the icy air. Her right hand felt as if it had frozen at the knuckles.

“By the Seven Stones!” he swore. “That—that’s not possible!”

She pulled herself up, ignoring the ache in her bones.

For fifty yards in every direction, the ground was blasted with hoarfrost. White crystals glistened under the starlight.

The wight was gone.

Yet her right hand ached, as if it blazed in a cold fire. She held it up, realized belatedly what had happened. She’d plunged her spear tip into the wight so hard that she had struck the beast with her hand. Her fist was as white as ice, and crystals shone brightly on the pale skin.