David Farland - Wizardborn

A man put his hands around her waist, and yanked. She turned to see a fellow with a grizzled face and a mouth full of rotting teeth. His hood was pulled up over his head.

“What?” she asked. She gripped her reins, but he had her off her horse so fast, she hardly had time to wonder what happened.

He set her on the ground near her mount, taking the reins in his hand as he did, and said urgently, “Here, now. These aren’t your horses. They’re worth a lot of money. What do you think you’re doing with them?”

She thought that maybe he knew the owner of the white mare, and had some fair argument. She was about to object when he slugged her. One moment she was standing there, and the next his fist came up in a quick jab, and Averan went reeling.

The world spun and went dark for a moment. Pain lanced through her head and jaw. Everything seemed to go cold.

She found herself lying on the cobblestones, while people shouted, “Thief! That man stole her horses.”

She could hear the fellow shouting, “Haw!” as he raced away. Hooves clattered over the stone.

Averan looked up to see where he’d gone, but a crowd was closing in on her. ” ‘Ere now, poor dear,” some old woman said, bending close to pull Averan to her feet. Averan could smell cooked vegetables on her woolen shawl.

Averan’s jaw stung, and she worked it experimentally, trying to see if it was broken. Her stomach churned, as if she would lose her breakfast. She’d slammed the back of her head on the cobblestones when she fell. Averan reached up and touched it, winced, and stared blankly at the blood on her fingers.

A moment ago she’d felt so smug and self-contained. Now she was no different from everyone around her.

Averan felt furious at the stranger who had stolen her horse. She felt furious at herself for letting him do it.

Almost without realizing it, she cast a spell.

She pictured Binnesman’s big Imperial stallion and focused on it. She saw it running down the road, its new master dragging it in tow.

The horse’s mind was frenzied. It could sense the fear of the people around it, could hear the distant thunder of the horde. It longed to escape, to reach the open plains of Indhopal.

It dreamed of sweet grass, and running through fields at night, nostrils flaring while its mane and tail floated out behind it. It remembered the mares of its herd, and the sweet taste of streams that flowed from the mountains.

The thrill of it all was marvelous, and utterly alien. Averan touched the horse’s consciousness, and immediately realized that she felt almost no kinship to this magnificent beast.

Averan called to it, and immediately the image slipped from her mind. She could not hold it. Binnesman’s charger would not respond to her summons. It wanted to get away from here.

She tried another tactic. She considered instead her attacker. She focused on his face. She could envision his grizzled beard, his rotting teeth, the warty mole just beneath his left eye.

He was racing from town, leading the spare horses, glancing behind to make sure that no one followed. He chuckled in glee, thinking he had escaped.

Averan reached out with her mind, tried to touch him more fully. She inhaled with his inhalations, exhaled as he did. She could feel that his bladder was full. He felt so excited, he really had to take a pee.

She delved deeper into his mind, could hear the whisper of his thoughts. “Fine horses. Sell ‘em in Gandry—and this time, won’t settle fo’ no pint of ale, neither!” She glimpsed flashes from his imagination—the thief cavorting with naked wenches.

His mind was a seething place, full of filth. She almost dared not touch it.

She summoned him, commanded him to turn the horses. “Go back,” she sent the warning. “You may be leaving a child to die.”

For an instant the thief caught his breath.

Where’d a thought like that come from? he wondered. He muttered in a prissy voice, “You may be leaving a child to die!”

Then he cackled in delight and spurred Averan’s white mare on.

Averan withdrew, snapped back into her own consciousness, and her legs nearly buckled beneath her. Her attempt had drained her, and drawn beads of perspiration on her brow.

Maggots would be easier to summon than that piece of filth, she realized. And they would be a whole lot cleaner, besides. Binnesman had warned her that it was harder to reach a complex mind.

Maybe I should have stuck with the horses, she thought regretfully.

Averan went to the guildhall. Just inside, Binnesman was coming down a grand staircase, talking urgently to Guildmaster Wallachs, an imposing man who wore wooden chains of office and bore himself with great authority. Spring walked behind them.

The guildmaster was saying, “I understand your concerns, but my men left fifteen minutes ago. I suspect that the first wagons full of poison are already in the water.”

“What did you send?”

“Nothing much—lye soap and lacquer. I thought to use ale. Not all of it that comes out of Feldonshire is fit for consumption. I’d rather see it used to poison a pond than to affront my gut.”

The men were so deep in conversation, neither of them even noticed Averan. “Binnesman,” she called, grabbing a nearby wall for support. “We’ve been robbed: a man took our horses!”

“What?” Wallachs demanded. “What man?”

“A stranger,” Averan said, searching for a way to describe him. “His...his breath smelled like rye bread and...fish.”

“Where is he?” the guildmaster demanded.

“Long gone!” Averan said. Outside, the noises of the city could be heard, the shouts of people, the tumult of horses.

The guildmaster sighed deeply. He apologized. “Don’t worry. You can ride out of town on my wain. I’m sorry about your horses. We’re good people in Feldonshire. But—”

Binnesman looked to Averan. “Did you try to summon the beasts?”

“I...tried that, and the thief, too. He won’t come back.” Averan crossed the room and collapsed into a chair in defeat.

An unending thunder rumbled through the hills beneath Shrewsvale. With it came a sound as if a million dry leaves hissed to the forest floor at once.

The horde forged onward.

Crows flapped up from the old forest, black pinions groping the sky as they sought to escape the onslaught. They winged about in a dirty haze amid the gree. A cold sun glared down through a thickening yellow brume. Huge oak trees, browned by autumn, shivered and cracked, leaving holes to gape in the canopy.

The reavers advanced in a formation that men had never seen, the strange new Form of War. Gaborn stopped his mount on a hilltop and peered at the forest. He saw the reavers scurrying forward, glimpsed gray carapaces beneath the trees. They loped with a newfound fury. A hundred times he considered sending men to ambush the reavers, but his Earth Powers warned against it. No lancers dared attack. To even send men within archery range was futile. Something had happened to the horde.

The hope of water lent the reavers new heart. They were learning, surely. Averan said that they knew his name, and feared him.

Gaborn had beaten them easily enough at Carris, when the lightning threw them into a panic. But he’d lost so many of his powers. Now, he dared not attack.