Roland Green: Knights of the Sword

Rubina nearly stamped her foot, then shrugged. “Well, you deserve a farewell, too. I am going out through the tunnel and collapse the rocks behind me. Please do not let anyone tamper with the devices until I am through. I can do the work better.”

She turned and started uphill. Birak Epron took two hasty steps after her.

“Rubina?” From hardened mercenary captain, he had suddenly turned into a youth whose first love has just slapped his face.

“Oh, forgive me, Birak,” she said, turning. “You deserve a farewell, too.”

The farewell took the form of an even longer kiss than she’d given Pirvan. The moment it was done, and before anyone could speak or move, she vanished among the huts.

Pirvan was the first to find his voice, and he used it to ask of Sirbones, “What does she-she is going out there to die! Why? She’s done so much for us-”

“So much for you, yes,” Sirbones replied. “And so much against the Dark Queen, and the Dark Queen’s daughter, Zeboim.

“The Dark Queen will have vengeance on a Black Robe who so betrays her. That vengeance will be horrible, and it will not spare anyone near Rubina when it comes. She goes her way alone, so that no one else will suffer at Takhisis’s hands.”

Sirbones’s words produced an even longer silence than Rubina’s sudden departure. This time it was the cleric who broke the silence.

“Let us find bearers for Delia and those who cannot walk, and make our way to the boats.”

* * * * *

Tarothin’s last awareness of Rubina came in the moment when she hurled a fireball into the tunnel to the stronghold. Half collapsed, half melted, the tunnel was now barred against anything much short of a god.

He called out to her, wanting to reach her with a final message, but he felt the message bounce back from the wall of magic he had erected around himself.

Very well. What was outside already was all that was needed, and nothing that those who fought for Zeboim could send would be able to penetrate the wall and reach him.

At least nothing they could send while they were fighting for their lives.

Tarothin shifted the position of his body and felt an easing of his mind. His time sense was a bit awry while he was this deep in spells, but it should not be long before the Sea Queen direly needed her mother’s help.

What Tarothin did to the servants of Zeboim was one of those things that are simple to describe but hard to accomplish. Wizardry is full of such, but this was one that the Red Robe had not before encountered.

Very simply, he walled himself off from the Evil spells. Then he surrounded the wall with another spell that turned all the power of Zeboim’s servants back against them.

He knew several such turnabout spells and would have used one long since, except that such spells risk destroying all wizards involved. It was walling himself off and repelling Evil at the same time that had needed the help of both Rubina’s power and of her knowledge of Black Robe powers.

The result was, as he learned afterward, all that could be expected.

There were, it was believed, seven priests of Zeboim aboard the Istarian fleet. There was one aboard each of three ships, and four together aboard another.

Two of the single priests died without their ships being destroyed. Of one priest they found nothing that could be recognized as having once been a human being. Of a second, they found such remains that hardened sailors turned aside and spewed-into the water rising rapidly from leaking seams.

The third lone priest vanished, no one knew where. All the crew of his ship learned was that suddenly there was a hole large enough for an oxcart in their ship, below the waterline. A well-disciplined crew, they took to their boats swiftly, and also threw overboard enough floatable deck gear so that most of them were saved in due course.

The ship with the four priests suffered a harsher fate.

* * * * *

Darin’s first warning of anything amiss was a sudden sharp shock that made the deck quiver under his feet.

Then he saw that where the contending storms had been was only a howling wind blowing toward the Istarians. A howling wind that died as swiftly as it had begun, leaving only patches of foam on rapidly shrinking waves.

Most of the Istarians were already under reefed canvas; Darin saw only one mast fall. But in the center of the fleet, a large ship seemed to rise from the water, as though some monster were lifting it.

Its keel was almost clear of the water when the ship disintegrated. It was not a slow crumbling, like a ship battered on the rocks. It was a shattering, like a ripe fruit thrown hard against a stone wall.

Masts and spars, deck and hull planking, ribs and portions of keel, deck gear, boats, cordage, sails, stores-all arched outward, pieces heavier than any man could lift flying like arrows. Flying, then splashing down among them, were flailing shapes that could only be the bodies of the crew.

Darin prayed briefly that they had not suffered. The Mate of the Deck had already given the order to the oarsmen, and Gullwing’ s prow was swinging about, toward the Istarians. If any wave followed the other ship’s destruction, it would be ready to meet it.

There was a wave, but it was more of a brief swelling of the water. The deck rose under Darin, then fell. Hardly a drop of water came aboard the battered galley. As the wave passed, a sailor came up to report that Tarothin’s cabin was now unlocked.

“Did you go in?”

“Unh-no, Lord.”

“Shall we go and see if we still have a wizard?”

The man blanched, but knew that Darin was not so mild as to tolerate cowards.

Gullwing still had a wizard, and the wizard, wearing sweat-soaked robes, was fast asleep. In fact, he was snoring fit to open the ship’s strained seams.

“Put water by him, and have the galley ready to offer any food he can eat when he wakes,” Darin told the sailor. “I will be on deck. We shape our course for the cove.”

* * * * *

At sea, the wave from the death of Zeboim’s servants was only the hump in the water that briefly lifted Gullwing . Closer to shore, when it reached shallow water, it became less benign.

From the boat, Aurhinius could hear more than he could see of the devastation among his ships. That was enough to chill him more than the breeze, but he put the best face on matters that he could. All around him he saw fear that might easily turn to panic; he’d be thrice-cursed if he intended to drown simply because some oarsmen lost their nerve and their wits!

“The battle of magic is over, and I do not think those we had aboard prevailed,” he called out. “But I have for long doubted that they were Good or Lawful. There can be a dreadful price to pay for allying oneself with such.”

And if these words get back to the kingpriest, so be it!

“I think the Red Robe Tarothin escaped from Pride of the Mountains to fight those who called themselves our friends. He is Neutral, which is to say that he will not pursue us, as long as he has prevailed over Evil.”

The men looked relieved, even if they didn’t seem to understand the half of what Aurhinius said. He was not sure himself that more than half of it was true or made sense. But this was one of the many times in his years of command when he had to say something, to fill with words a silence that would otherwise fill with terror!

Then all his efforts seemed in vain, as a wall of water rose behind the boat.

It was gray-blue at the bottom and green near the top, and it rose above the boat as high as the aftercastle of a great ship. It swept forward, it swooped down-and Aurhinius felt the boat rising.