Nancy Berberick - Stormblade

Piper pushed away from the oak, passed through the shadows, and stood behind Stanach. “We have to leave him, my friend. I’m sorry. But we don’t dare stay here any longer.”

Stanach closed his eyes again. Kyan had a war-cry like summer thunder, like a madman’s howl. He had a strong right arm and a warrior’s heart, fierce and generous. He would have no eulogy and not even a hastily built cairn. But he would be remembered.

Stanach got slowly to his feet. He looked up at the sky. The sun had started its long slide down to the west and soon would be setting. He didn’t want to be caught in the night. Theiwar did their best work in the dark.

“Piper, how far to Long Ridge?”

The mage shrugged. “Eight, maybe ten miles through the forest. Five by the road.”

Stanach grunted. He picked up his sword, wet with Theiwar blood, and cleaned it as best he could on the grass by the roadside. He slid it into the scabbard across his back and slung his pack over his shoulder. “We’d better go. If that’s an occupied town as you say, I don’t imagine they’ll be letting strangers in after dark, eh?”

“Likely not. And—” Piper stopped suddenly and pointed to the crest of the closest hill.

Dark as wolves, the four Theiwar, only recently fled, had returned. The shortest among them pointed down toward the edge of the trees. Piper laid a light hand on his friend’s shoulder. “And we’d better split up.”

The four drifted slowly down the slope. Wolves circling. They’d been waiting for the mage’s fire to vanish, waiting to return and finish the killing they’d started.

Stanach shook his head. “No. We stay together.”

Piper’s voice was shadowy and thin. “If we stay together you can be sure we’ll die together.” His fingers tightened on Stanach’s shoulder. “One of us has to get to Long Ridge. Let’s double our chances, eh? You head for the town. These woods aren’t Qualinesti, but neither are you a woodsman, so don’t wander, Stanach. It wouldn’t take elven wards and magic to get you firmly lost in there.

“Keep to the shadows and the trees. Have the road always in sight and you’ll find yourself in a farming valley before you know it. The town sits on the crest of the valley’s northern slope. Find Stormblade, do what you have to do to get it. Then get out.”

The dwarves began to put distance between themselves. They fanned out in a semi-circle, still moving slowly. The wind kicked up dust at their feet so that they seemed to be moving a hand’s width above the stony ground. Stanach cocked an eye at his friend.

“And you?”

Piper’s grin was slow and knowing. “I still have it in me for one more spell. Leave me to me, Stanach.” One of the guards laughed, a high, howling sound. “And leave them to me, too. I’ll lead them a fine chase and lose them fast. You just find the sword. I’ll double back and meet you here in two or three days. We’ll be back in Thorbardin before you know it.”

“Aye,” Stanach said wryly, “on the wings of another one of your transport spells, staggering and stumbling and looking for a place to vomit.”

Piper shrugged. “It’s better than walking.”

Stanach agreed. “Wait then. But not forever. If I don’t find the sword soon, we’re going to have to track it together. Give me a five-day. If I’m not back—with the sword or without it—do what you think is best.” He looked one last time at Kyan and at the blood in the road. “Luck, Piper.”

“Aye, luck, Stanach. And if you’re luckless, do what you have to do. Now go!”

Stanach scrambled for the shadows and the trees. Five yards into the wood, he heard voices raised in oaths to evil gods and turned to look back. Like a wave of smoke, a thick black cloud funneled down from the sky. Rustling and a high, nervous chittering filled the air as a sweep of bats, day-blind and guided only by Piper’s will, descended upon the slope of the near hill like a hundred small carrion crows.

Silently, Stanach blessed his friend for the time that spell purchased and headed north.

Stanach gagged on the thick stench of old burning. He’d heard reports of the war from Kyan and his fellows who walked the border patrol along the western edge of the dwarven holdings. He thought he knew, from their tales, what he might find here in the Outlands. He had never imagined the kind of destruction that lay before him now.

At one time, and not too long ago, the valley must have been fertile. Now, he thought, the sparrows would starve before winter. As Piper had said, the town lay on the ridge’s crest on the valley’s northern end. Almost everything below that ridge lay in scorched ruin.

The light of the setting sun fell soft and purple across once-cultivated fields, showing wide black swaths where the flames had run down the length of the vale. Here and there, in scattered patches, small sections of the crops had gone untouched by the fire. These crops, unharvested, shimmered like narrow veins of gold. The fire-blackened willows along the banks of the river, which bisected the valley north to south, clawed the sky like the groping fingers of skeletons. As far as Stanach could see, farmhouses, barns, and small outbuildings lay collapsed, mere piles of rubble now.

A dragon had flown through here.

Laughter, rough and drunken, rose from the valley and echoed against the ridge. Looters, Stanach thought. The place had not been burned that long ago. It would take the dragonarmy soldiers weeks to finish stripping the farmhouses and the dead.

Only two weeks ago, Pax Tharkas in the Kharolis Mountains had been taken by the Highlord Verminaard. The forces of Takhisis had begun their assault on Abanasinia. The wisdom of Thorbardin had it that these humans, blind seekers after new gods, and the elves who had recently fled Qualinesti, had brought this war down on their own heads. They were living with the disaster they’d called upon themselves now. Or they were dead of it.

No business of mine, Stanach thought as he slid his sword from its scabbard and turned away. His business was to find a Kingsword, and at least two hours of walking lay between him and the town. If he didn’t want to be caught in this wretched valley he’d have to hurry. Still, he was happy to leave the place behind. The wind was picking up now and it mourned through the ruined fields sounding like newly made phantoms.

Breathing the dark scent of rich loam, Piper lay as silently as a ghost behind a tangled pile of uprooted trees. The Theiwar guards were as noisy as a passing herd of cattle. Brown and brittle, the fallen leaves rustled beneath their feet, and twigs snapped and popped under their booted feet. When he’d fled into the woods, Piper had regretted that he hadn’t the strength for an invisibility spell. He grinned now as one guard with a wounded arm tripped over an oak’s tangled roots. A blind and deaf mule could keep out of their way!

He listened for long moments as they went on, calling to each other and cursing the thick underbrush. Piper hoped they planned to hunt their dinner in these woods; they’d likely warn every rabbit, deer, and squirrel for miles around that there were dwarves about.

After a time, they angled north as Stanach had, keeping to the edge of the wood. Piper shook his head. At the rate these four were going, Stanach would be in and out of Long Ridge before the Theiwar penetrated the valley. Stanach, dwarf though he was, and as likely to make a racket as these four, had at least a two hour start on them. Piper sat up, peered around, and satisfied himself that he was alone.

Two hours head start, he thought, and not searching for a mage who had somehow managed to make himself invisible without a spell. Piper grinned and got to his feet, brushing off his red robes. He squinted up at the sky, brighter here in the shadows of the trees than it had seemed out on the road.