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Robert Salvatore: Mortalis

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Robert Salvatore Mortalis

Mortalis: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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From somewhere out in the mist, a powrie cursed.

The charge was on-the blare of trumpets, the thunder of horses, the clash of steel, and the cries of battle.

From the wall, Pony and the others couldn't see much, just ghostly forms rushing to and fro in the fog. But then one group of powries burst out of the mist, charging for the wall. Before the archers could level their bows, before Pony could even take the offered graphite stone from Brother Braumin, Duke Kalas and a group of knights charged out behind the dwarves, trampling and slashing, disposing of them in mere seconds, then whirling their superb To-gai-ru ponies and thundering back across the field.

Some of those on the wall uttered a few prayers, but most remained hushed in disbelief, for never had they seen a band of tough powries so completely and easily overwhelmed.

Out in the mist, the sounds of battle began to recede, the powries obviously in flight, the Duke and his men giving chase.

The hundreds on or near Palmaris' western wall broke out into cheers for the Duke, the new Baron of Palmaris.

"Pray they are not being baited," Brother Francis remarked, an obvious fear given the ease of the rout.

Pony, standing quietly next to him, staring hard at the opaque veil that had kept so much from her eyes, didn't fear that possibility. She simply had a sense that it was not so, that Kalas and his Allheart knights had not gone off into great danger.

Something about the whole battle hadn't seemed… right.

She thought about taking up a hematite then, and spirit-walking across the field, through the veil of mist to watch the Duke's moves more closely. But she dismissed the notion with a shake of her head.

"What is it?" the observant Brother Braumin asked.

"Nothing at all," Pony replied, running her hand through her damp mop of thick blond hair. She continued to stare out at the mist, continued to listen to the cries of battle and dying powries, continued to feel that something here was not quite right. "Nothing at all." From a copse across the field, another set of eyes curiously watched the spectacle of battle. Bedraggled, wet, and miserable with a scraggly beard, his monk's robes long ago tattered by inner demons, Marcalo De'Unnero could not understand how a substantial powrie force-and he figured any force that would go so boldly against Palmaris had to be substantial-had arrived on the field so suddenly without his noticing the approach. He had been here for several days, seeking food and shelter, trying to stay alive and stay sane. He had watched every movement of the few farmers who had dared to come back out from within the walls of their city, to sit buttoned down in their modest homes for the winter. He had spent long hours studying the graceful movements of the skittish animals.

Mostly De'Unnero had watched the animals, his primary prey. He could sense their moods now, could see the world as they did, and he had noted no unusual smell of fear in the air that any approaching army, especially one dragging machines as large as catapults, would likely provoke.

So where had the powries come from?

De'Unnero made his way back into the copse and through the trees, at last sighting the catapult-just a single war engine-and its crew, its human crew, in a small lea amid the trees. The gunners, as far as he had discerned, had lobbed but a single shot and appeared in no hurry to load and fire another.

"Clever Duke Kalas," De'Unnero, the former brother justice, remarked, figuring out the ruse and the purpose behind it.

He hushed immediately, hearing the snap of a twig not so far away. Close enough for him to smell the blood.

"Yach, damned swordsman," he heard a powrie grumble, then he spotted the bloody cap dwarf, trudging along a path.

Then De'Unnero spotted the gash on the dwarf's shoulder, a bright line of blood crystal clear to him despite the fog. Yes, he saw it and smelled it, the sweet fragrance filling his nostrils, permeating his senses.

He felt the first convulsions of change an instant later, growled quietly against the sudden, sharp pains in his fingers and toes, and then in his jaw-the transformation of the jaw always hurt the most.

De'Unnero's shoulders lurched forward suddenly as his spine twisted. He fell to all fours, but that was a more comfortable position anyway, as his hips rotated.

Now he was a cat, a great orange, black-striped tiger.

"Damned," the approaching powrie cursed. "Said 'e wouldn't hit me so hard!"

The last words vanished in the powrie's throat as the dwarf came on guard, sensing suddenly that he was not alone. He started to turn back, but swung in a terrified rush as the brush rustled and the great cat leaped over him, bearing him to the ground with frightening speed and ease. The dwarf flailed wildly and tried to call out, but the cat paws were quicker and stronger, hooking leathery skin and forcing the powrie's arms away. The powerful jaws clamped onto his throat.

A moment later, De'Unnero began his morning meal.

His keen senses soon discerned the sounds of others approachinghorsemen and cursing dwarves-so he bit into the dead powrie's shoulder and dragged the meal away.

"Ye kilt them to death in battle!" Dalump Keedump accused, spitting with every word, waggling his stubby finger at Duke Kalas, who sat tall astride his brown-and-white To-gai-ru pony, seeming unconcerned.

"I told you that several might die," Kalas replied.

"Too many!" grumbled another dwarf, the same one who had challenged Kalas in the dungeons of Chasewind Manor those days before. "Ye're a lyin' bastard dog."

A single urging kick sent the Duke's well-trained pony into a leap that brought him right by the powrie; and with a single fluid motion, Kalas, as fine a warrior as Honce-the-Bear had to offer, brought his shining sword out and swiped down, lopping off the powrie's head.

"You think this a game?" the Duke cried at Dalump, at all the remaining powries. "Shall we cut you all down here and now and make our victory complete? "

Dalump Keedump, hardly frightened by the death of several of his kinfolk-in fact, a bit relieved that Kalas had finally disposed of the loudmouth-hooked his stubby thumbs under the edges of his sleeveless tunic and tilted his head, staring hard at the Duke. "I'm thinkin' that our blood just bought us a boat fer home," he said.

Duke Kalas calmed, stared long at the dwarf, and then nodded his head. "In the spring," he agreed, "as soon as the weather permits. And you will be treated well until then, with warm blankets and extra food."

"Keep yer blankets and get us some human women for warmin'," Dalump pressed.

Kalas nearly gave the command to slaughter the rest of the powries then and there. He'd keep his word to let this group go free, back to their distant homeland, and he would make sure that they fared better in the dungeons over the winter, with more supplies. But if he ever saw a grubby powrie hand anywhere near a human woman, even a lowly peasant whore, he'd surely cut it off and then take the powrie's head, as well.

"Drag them back in chains tonight," he instructed one of his knights, "as quietly as possible. Tell any city guards that the captured dwarves will be interrogated and summarily executed, then put them back in their cell."

Kalas spun his pony and started away, his closest commanders hurrying to get their mounts at his side. The Duke stopped, and turned back.

"Count the dead and the living and scour the field," he instructed. "Every powrie is to be accounted for."

"Ye think we'd stay in yer miserable land any longer than we're havin' to?" Dalump Keedump asked, but Kalas simply ignored him.

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