Iron Tongue

" Fight," Inyx said, her voice almost too low to be heard. " Fight to the death. It' s cleaner than what he offers. He will never allow us to walk away."

Iron Tongue rocked forward, bent slightly at the hips, as if summoning up the energy to give in to Claybore. Inyx' s hand rested on her sword hilt. She wondered if a quick draw and a powerful slash across the throat would decapitate Iron Tongue. She doubted it. There would have to be a second cut, but the first might silence him enough to prevent use of the full force of his tongue.

An instant before she unsheathed and executed, hideous screams came cascading down from above. Startled, the dark- haired woman looked up. Then she let out a loud whoop of joy.

" Lan did it! The spiders!"

The soldiers either leaped or were tossed off the mountains by the score. Where once there had been boulders falling, now the air filled with flailing, screaming bodies. Darker forms dotted the cliffs, moving upward with agile grace.

" A boulder!" came the warning. " The boulders fly!"

One did smash into Wurnna, but the rest simply rolled off the canyon rim to plunge impotently to the floor some distance from the city. Inyx spun and looked out at the plain stretching in front of the city gates. Claybore balanced atop his mechanical as if stunned by the sudden turn of events. When he rattled off, shouting orders as he went, his troops milled in obvious disarray.

" Iron Tongue," said Inyx. " Use the Voice. Stop the troops from running away."

" Halt!" The word rolled like thunder down the canyon. The greyclads froze in their tracks. In spite of two figures going through the ranks, flogging and kicking, the majority of the soldiers stood frozen in their tracks.

" Those two," muttered Noratumi. " Silvain and k' Adesina?"

" Probably. Claybore called them in for what was to be his moment of triumph."

" Why' d you want the troops to stand? Now they can wheel and fight. We' re in no shape to fend off another assault." Rugga wore every piece of the power stone jewelry she had and still it seemed to give her little enough energy to conjure. The toll on her strength had been extreme while keeping Claybore' s magics at bay.

" Wait. Just wait." Inyx knew how Krek thought. If the giant arachnid commanded those on the heights, as she suspected he did, there would soon be a new element introduced into battle at the floor of the canyon. When spiders came crashing down on thick strands of webstuff, she knew the heights were secure. The spiders gathered, at first by ones and twos, then by dozens, to move away from Wurnna and into the frozen ranks of Claybore' s army.

Even the power of Iron Tongue' s command faded as raw terror shook the men and women facing eight- foot spiders with clacking mandibles and a ferocity little known outside the insect kingdom.

The carnage was great and the confusion in Claybore' s ranks even greater. Inyx found herself delighting in the sight of blood flowing in trickles, streams, rivers. To her left Iron Tongue stood stunned and uncomprehending. To her right Jacy and Rugga clung to one another. Inyx might gain vicarious revenge and savor the destruction, but none of the other humans did.

" They deserve this," Inyx tried to explain. " They tried to destroy your city. They did destroy Bron."

" But this:" croaked Rugga, turning away.

" This ends the physical threat," came a new voice. " But Claybore will not give up this easily."

" Lan!" Inyx rushed to him and gave him the hero' s kiss he deserved. He pushed her away, oddly distant.

" The battle is just beginning. Rugga, assemble all the mages. Claybore will fight like a cornered rat now. We must be ready. We must keep the tongue away from him at all costs."

To be out of sight of the bloodshed wreaked by the spiders, Rugga was happy to go on any mission, no matter how trivial. Only Lan Martak realized that the ferocity of battle had yet to reach a climax.

" Look at the death they caused. The grey- clads will never return. Not ever." Iron Tongue stood and gloated. The others uneasily stared out at the canyon stretching away from the city. While Claybore' s physical army may have been destroyed by the spiders, who now had returned to their valley, his magical senses were untouched. What worried Lan and the others the most was the lack of aggression shown by the dismembered mage.

" He plots something more diabolical than ever before," said Rugga. " I feel the air thickening about us."

Lan sensed this also, but discounted it as nervous foreboding. Whatever magics Claybore unleashed on them wouldn' t carry advanced warning.

" Are you all right?" asked Inyx, putting her hands on his shoulders and pressing her body to his back. She rested her cheek on his broad shoulder. " Ever since you came back from the valley of spiders you' ve been distant."

" I conjured an elemental," he said, knowing it meant little to her. " That' s one of the most potent of all sorceries and I did it, almost without thinking. I dipped down and drew power from within- and from the power stone- and countered Claybore' s water elemental with a fire elemental."

" Heavy magic," she said, obviously unaware of the tinkering with nature such a conjuration required.

" I did it so easily. Such power- and I don' t want it!" He held his hands before him and simply stared at them. These weren' t the hands he remembered. The work- thickenings were gone. These hands had turned soft and seemed incapable of properly wielding a sword, yet Lan Martak saw more on, within, around his fingers and palms. A radiance welled up from inside, pale and golden and more potent than even the strongest of sinews. He had lost a minor physical talent while gaining a major magical and psychic one.

" The Fates have chosen you to carry the fight to Claybore, to stop him," Inyx said softly. " Destiny, luck, call it what you will. You are the only one capable of doing it."

" But I' m not a mage," he protested.

" You weren' t," she corrected. " You are now. Your talents were hidden, but the many transitions between worlds have brought forth your true power."

" Am I still human?" he asked in a voice barely loud enough to hear. " Is any sorcerer human?"

Inyx answered by gently turning him around and kissing him.

" You' re human," she pronounced. " And I love you."

He returned the kiss and held her, feeling the world could stop now and he' d be happy for all eternity. But the mood shattered when he sensed a stirring of magic.

" Claybore!" he cried. Rugga and the few remaining mages were already on their feet, staring out into the emptiness, wondering what devilment Claybore produced.

They didn' t wait long to find out.

A warrior dressed in flame strode out. No human this, he towered a hundred feet above the walls of Wurnna. Mighty hands clutched a sword that no score of men might lift. Muscles rippling and sending out dancing tongues of fire, the giant swung the sword.

Lan and the others tried to ward off the blow. The sword grated and screeched and cut through stone, sending vast clouds of dust into the air. Wherever the sword touched stone, it turned molten and burned with insane intensity. None of Wurnna approached closer than a bowshot; none could endure the searing flame.

The giant bellowed out his hatred for all within the city and took a mighty overhead swing. The blade sundered the wall with a deafening crash.

" Lan," gasped Rugga, the sweat of fear popping out on her forehead and gathering the dust, " how do we stop it? No weakness is to be found. Our spells have no effect."

The young mage studied, probed, lightly tested Claybore' s monster for some clue. In its way this was a simpler magical construct than an elemental; it was also more difficult to counter. Lan knew an elemental would be a useless conjuration. Claybore wanted him to waste his efforts in ways producing little effect.