Victor Milan - War In Tethys

"Now," she said, "let's finish this." She started for-ward.

"Randi!" Goldie screamed.

By reflex Zaranda dived forward. As she did, some-thing struck the back of her head with jarring impact and clawing pain. She went sprawling on the grass.

Sparks fountained behind her eyes. Her head rang like a dwarven smith's forge. She blinked to clear her vision, saw Togrev looming over her like a colossus, great axe poised above his head. He had only to fall for-ward to cleave her in two.

Behind her she heard malicious laughter and the sliding song of a spiked morningstar head circling on its chain. Her right hand, miraculously, still held Crackletongue. She looked back at the marauder who had struck her from behind, flung her left arm toward him, forefinger pointed.

"Twenty feet and six!" she gasped. A light like an orange-glowing crossbow bolt flashed past the morn-ingstar man's left hip.

He hooted shrill triumph through his nose. "Missed!" He swung the morningstar.

The light-bolt flew twenty feet away and six feet up, then exploded. Laughter turned to scream as the fire-ball's fringe engulfed the man with the morningstar.

Zaranda turned her head. Togrev was in the process of toppling toward her, his axe making the air itself scream pain. With all the power in her flat-muscled belly, Zaranda jackknifed, thrusting Crackletongue into his gut.

Her magic blade bit through the overlapped steel plates of his hauberk and the thick leather beneath, through sweaty, hairy skin and then fat to muscle bunched beneath. And there Crackletongue's magic and Zaranda's strength failed her. The saber would pene-trate no farther.

Zaranda's presence of mind had not deserted her, though. She guided the butt of her basketed sword-hilt to the earth beside her, then rolled clear as Togrev's own momentum completed the task of spitting him.

For a while Zaranda just lay on her belly, tasting grass-flavored air and bits of dark, moist soil that had found their way into her mouth. They tasted good. Even the dirt.

Finally she rolled over and tried to sit up. Her head began performing interesting acrobatics, and she almost fell back. A hand grabbed her biceps and held her up.

She nodded weak thanks and looked up. To her sur-prise it was Farlorn who held her, not Father Pelletyr. The priest was hunched over, shoulders heaving as if he were gasping for breath. He clutched the center of his chest. His face was red.

With Farlorn's help Zaranda picked herself up. She nodded again, patted the half-elven bard's hand to sig-nify that he could let her go. He hesitated, then did so and stepped back.

Stillhawk had an arrow nocked and drawn back to his ear, holding down on the surviving captives, who had all gone the color of new papyrus or old paper be-hind their sundry whiskers and coatings of grime. They were staring at the smoking corpse of the morningstar man, their eyes like holes in sheets.

"That's right," she croaked. "He was right. I am a witch. A wizard, in any event. But unlike him, I'm one who keeps my faith. Now go."

The marauders cast a final look at Stillhawk, then lit out running over the gently rolling hills.

Zaranda turned back to Father Pelletyr.

"Randi," Goldie said, "he doesn't look too good."

"Father, are you all right?" Zaranda asked.

"I'm fine." He waved a hand at her. "It's just—these pains in my chest and left arm. They soon shall pass, martyred Ilmater willing."

"If you say so." Zaranda walked over to her mare. What she intended as a hug turned into a grab for sup-port as her knees momentarily buckled.

Goldie held her head up, shying from Zaranda's at-tempt to stroke her cheek. "You take some crazy risks, Zaranda," she said with exaggerated primness.

Zaranda realized the mare was humiliated by her earlier panicky lapse into horse. She laughed and scratched Goldie's neck until she found the itchy spot horses always have, and the mare arched her neck and bobbed her head in pleasure. Zaranda hugged her again and let her go.

The erstwhile lord high commander of the Barony of Pundaria lay in an unmoving mound, Crackletongue protruding from his broad back. The curved blade no longer crackled and sparked with magic. Dead meat knows no alignment.

"All right, then," Zaranda said. "Who'll help me turn this carrion over and reclaim my blade?"

"Have you heard?" the peasant asked. He had a large and colorful wart on the side of his nose and a leather bonnet pulled down over his ears. His garments had been patched until they were more quilt than clothing and still more hole than fabric. "There's a strong man rising in Zazesspur town. And high time, too. He'll bring order back to the land."

"Aye," said another, equally ragged, who was chew-ing a tufted stalk of timothy grass. He pawed through the assortment of brass implements and cooking ves-sels Zaranda had spread upon a horse blanket beneath an oak tree that shaded one patch of the tiny village green. He wore a tattered and shapeless felt hat against the noonday sun. "We need strong government, an' that's a fact."

The rest of the throng of prospective shoppers nodded and murmured assent. Like the two who had spoken, and like the village and farmhouses themselves, the villagers had a dusty, threadbare, ground-down look.

The caravan's mules grazed on the grass of the common—for which the local mayor had exacted an ad-vance fee—while their drovers and riders watered themselves in the village's lone tavern—for which the local mayor also exacted tariff, inasmuch as he was the tavernkeeper.

Zaranda had left the bulk of the train encamped in a laager and made a detour through the city of Ithmong with a few muleloads of nonmagical luxury items—spices, dyes, vials of scent, incense-cones.

They found an increase in prosperity and decrease in paranoia since the ouster of Gallowglass, with his tyrant's dreams and schemes. Zaranda had parlayed the wares into a dozen new mules loaded with more conventional goods such as tinware, pins, nails, and bolts of colored cloth to trade to the peasants and village folk along the route to Zazesspur.

It was penny-ante commerce, and Zaranda would be doing well to break even. She didn't care. It was a cheap way to garner intelligence and goodwill, and be-sides she felt for the people of the Tethyr countryside. Between bandits and big-city ambitions, only a rare armed caravan such as hers ever reached them. Other-wise the countryfolk had no access to goods beyond what they made themselves, which was why every mo-bile soul for miles had come pouring into town as news of the caravan's arrival spread.

Goldie stood to one side watching the proceedings with interest. Now she cocked an eye at the grass-chewing peasant who had proclaimed the need for strong government.

"Why do you say that?" she asked. The man only gog-gled at her slightly; word that the caravan leader rode a talking mare had spread quickly through the village. "That's like saying you need more locusts."

"Now, Golden Dawn," Father Pelletyr said, munch-ing a cold chicken leg, "you shouldn't talk that way."

"You don't think I should talk at all, Father."

"Now, child, you know that's not true—"

"Begging your leave," the peasant said pointedly around his grass stalk, "but our neighbors have more wealth than we."

"Truer words never saw daylight," agreed his friend in the cap. "A good, strong government would take it from them and give it to us."

"Why should they do that?" Goldie asked.

The locals looked at her in consternation. "Because we are hardworking and worthy sons and daughters of Tethyr."

"Aren't they the same?"

The crowd began to give the mare hard looks. "Do not trouble yourself overmuch with her babblings, good folk," Farlorn said suavely. "She's merely a dumb animal."