David Drake - The Mirror of Worlds

Kore left the main track, leaning to the side as she angled toward the peel tower. On the second stride her foot splashed ankle deep in wet soil. She staggered and Garric threw his left arm around her neck. The aegipan had dropped behind. "The ground's soft!" the ogre said. Her feet splashed geysers of mud at every step. "It'll be softer yet behind the tower!" "They got a horse back there, didn't they?" Garric shouted. Carus was a flaming presence in his mind, silent but pulsing with eagerness for battle. "Go around! Beyond the doorway, the tower's interior was a dark void smelling of blood and fear. The air oozing from it was noticeably warmer than the dawn breeze following Garric down from the ridge. Kore swung to the right, the direction Garric was leaning. Her right leg plunged to the knee in muck; she threw her arms back to keep from overbalancing. Her left leg, kicked far forward to brace her, sank to the crotch. She belly flopped, lifting sedges in a ripple of mud. Garric flew clear and landed at the base of the tower.

He'd tightened his rib muscles when he realized what was happening, so though hitting the soft ground was a shock it didn't knock his breath out. He got up, drawing his sword as he started around the tower. At each step he sloshed to mid-calf. He couldn't imagine how the inhabitants'd gotten a horse over soil like this; it should've sunk to its belly. "There are three men," said Shin, clicking along at his left side. The base of the tower flared outward in a skirt to deter battering rams. The aegipan's hooves sparkled as he ran on the stone, his inner leg tucked high to keep his slight body upright. "And the horse they are leading." Garric came around the curve of the building.

Two men in drab clothing drove a white horse like the one on which Orra had left the Boar's Skull. One hauled on the reins while the other followed behind, cracking a quirt viciously into the beast's hindquarters. The white horse pitched and whinnied, but the band tightly around its muzzle smothered the sound into a desperate whimper. The third figure was taller and thin; his garments shimmered in the first light of dawn. He stood at the edge of the sinkhole Garric had noticed when they passed the tower on the previous afternoon. When the tall figure saw Garric, he shouted to his servants in a language that sounded like birds calling. They turned, drawing curved swords from under their robes. Freed, the horse bolted to its left and immediately mired itself. There was a firm path beneath the surface, though only mud with a sheen of algae showed to a stranger's eye. Garric found the path, a causeway of stone barely below the mud.

It was as slick as wet ice, but he still felt a jolt of triumph. He drew his dagger with his left hand and started forward. He'd have rushed the trio just the same if he'd had to swim. After all, the servants didn't have any better footing than he did. "You've decided they're enemies without parley, Garric?" Shin said judiciously. "Well, I think you are right in that." The figure in gleaming robes held a silver athame in his left hand. He pointed it at Garric and chanted,

"Churbu bureth baroch!" The hair on the back of Garric's neck tingled, but to survive he had to concentrate on one thing at a time…

The servant who'd been behind the horse made a series of wide, curling cuts in the air. "A farmer with a sickle could do better!" Carus sneered as Garric stepped in. Garric held his sword low and the dagger advanced in his left hand. He had to finish the first servant before the other joined the fight. The hidden causeway was narrow, but the other fellow might be smart enough to splash through the muck and trap him between them. Don't underestimate your oppo- The servant slashed.

Garric blocked the cut with his dagger, his muscles poised to thrust the fellow through the body, topple him dying into the mire, and rush the remaining man before he was prepared for the attack. Blade met blade with a squealing crash. Garric felt the shock to his shoulder and his left hand went numb. His body twisted with the blow, fouling the neat training-ground thrust he'd been ready to make. He'd underestimated his opponent. Whatever the thing was, it wasn't human-or anyway was inhumanly strong. Garric stumbled forward with the blades locked, shouldering the servant in the chest. He thought there was something harder than bone beneath the robes, but he didn't have time or need to worry about it. He punched the sword upward, in through the belly and out through the spine between the servant's shoulder blades. The fellow spasmed but didn't let go of his curved sword. His tongue protruded from his pale lips and he began to grunt like a farrowing sow. Garric pushed hard with his left hand-the feeling was beginning to come back-and jerked down on his hilt to clear the sword. His cross-guard was against the servant's ribs. If the blade hadn't been uniquely sharp, he might not have been able to withdraw it from so deep a thrust. As it was, it cut bone as easily coming out as it had going in. The dead servant flopped on the causeway. The living one recoiled slightly to avoid tripping. Garric lunged, thrusting. His driving foot slipped on wet stone and he dropped to his left knee. His point didn't go home, but neither did the servant's roundhouse slash. Carus-it was his reflex, not Garric's-flicked his blade up instead of recovering the way a swordmaster would've directed after a failed thrust. The sword's tip touched the servant's wrist and sheared muscle, sinew and bone. The servant's curved blade spun into the sedges and sank. His hand dangled at right angles to his forearm. He turned to run, his robes flapping, but his foot skidded just as Garric's had a moment before. He fell off the causeway with another hoglike grunt. Carus would've stabbed the floundering servant just in case, but Garric didn't have his ancestor's ruthlessness. He stepped past the man, his eyes on the wizard who stood chanting and pointing the athame at him. "Artaie thaimam thar!" the wizard called. Garric froze where he stood. The mare had been trying to regain the causeway since bolting off it the moment she'd been released. She put her forehooves in the middle of the servant's chest and tried to lift herself upward; instead she drove the man into the bog with a final despairing grunt. Slime bubbled. "Arbitha rathrathax!" said Shin in a musical voice. Shards of red wizardlight, invisible till that moment, flaked away from Garric.

They splashed on the wet earth and vanished hissing. He was free again. The aegipan stood on the causeway, grinning his goat's grin.

The wizard beside the sinkhole shouted in disbelief. Garric started forward. Though momentary, the pause had robbed him of his momentum.

His muscles ached from the ride and the fight. But he could still kill a wizard. There was no question about that. The wizard must've realized that too. He pointed his athame at the bog and mumbled words that Garric couldn't hear over the roar of blood in his ears. Garric took another step, a careful one because he didn't need to hurry: the wizard had nowhere to go but into the bog or the sinkhole. The wizard stepped off the causeway and strode through the sedges. He wore slippers of gilt leather. They sparkled with scarlet wizardlight every time they touched the surface, but they didn't sink into the mud. The wizard had a thin, imperious face. He glared with contempt as he passed safely beyond the reach of Garric's arm and sword, but he watched the aegipan with a combination of hatred and fear; he raised the silver athame as if to bar an attack. Shin merely laughed and lolled his tongue. Garric started back down the causeway. "Don't bother," said Shin. Garric stopped. He couldn't get past the aegipan without stepping into the bog. He didn't trust Shin's judgment, but he was too tired to argue about it. The wizard reached the base of his tower and started around it, keeping his face toward Garric and Shin the whole time. When the curving stone wall half-shielded him, he pointed the athame again and said, "Thora amaim-" Kore reached down with a long arm and gripped the wizard's ankles. "Urk!" the wizard shrieked as Kore jerked him in the air. She dashed his brains out against the side of the tower. His athame clinked from the stone, then splashed into the bog. Kore continued to hold the corpse upside down.