Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 2 - Metamorphosis

I nocked another arrow, made out a target on my left, then swung towards the running shape and fired, but as soon as I did so, I lost sight of both target and arrow and had no idea

of whether I had hit or not. Undeterred, and feeling a snake of fear biting at my entrails, I repeated the manoeuvre, this time spinning to my right and loosing at a half seen shape; this one went down, spinning to fall among long grass. More than half blind I might be, but the attackers had no way of knowing that, and once again they dropped to the ground. Still, I saw movement among the growth, far on my right, too far away and too indistinct to offer a target. I knew what the movement represented, though: people moving uphill to outflank us. I shot two more arrows into the area directly ahead of me, pulling the bowstring back to my ear each time. The blind spot before my eyes was diminishing.

It was then I saw a most amazing, overwhelming thing. The very surface of the trees below me seemed to bend and flex, as though pressed flat by some enormous, unseen hand. Everything in my sight faded almost instantly to an impenetrable greyness and was lost in a swelling roar of deafening sound. I barely had time to marvel, for almost instantly that alien force came beating down on me. It was a hailstorm, massive and elemental, and the sheer fury of the onslaught hammered me to my hands and knees. The noise against my metal helmet was appalling and the weight of hailstones beating at me was insupportable. I allowed myself to fall face down, abandoning my weapons and rolling my body up into a ball. Every exposed portion of my skin was a mass of sharp, stinging pains and I wondered if I might die there, battered to death by ancient forest gods. But then the force of the storm abated slightly, and I opened my eyes.

Donuil was riding towards me, bent forward from his saddle, his right arm outstretched to seize me. I uncurled my body and pushed myself erect, grasping my long bow in my left hand and reaching upward with my right, aware as I did so that I clutched a single hailstone the size of a .: horse turd. I dropped it and bent my arm, locking elbows with Donuil as he galloped by and leaping upwards as he swung me across his horse's rump. It was a trick we hadpracticed a hundred times. I clung to the back of his saddle as he turned, just short of the path's lip, and headed back towards the others. I leaped down and pulled myself up into my own saddle, fighting my horse as it struggled and reared away from me, maddened by the pulverizing hail. I managed to mount, eventually, and to bring my horse under a degree of control, and then we were moving again, seeking shelter that was nowhere to be found. Even among the trees there was no respite, for the hailstorm had stripped the leaves from the thick canopy above. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the deluge of ice ended and a profound silence settled everywhere.

None of us moved in that silence, not even our horses, as though all of us were afraid to stir lest the gods of the storm detect our movement and unleash the ice again. But the silence held, and grew, and we began to accept that it was over. I twisted in my saddle and looked about me, gratefully conscious that my sight had fully returned. All the land about us was carpeted with solid ice and slush. I pulled myself together and kicked my horse into motion again,' beginning to feel the smarting ache of the pounding my body had taken, and the others moved with me, gathering themselves and moving slowly towards the path again. Only twelve of us remained: Benedict was there, and young Bedwyr, who looked exhausted and far older than his years, Shelagh and Tress and Donuil, and six troopers. Germanicus, my black, was still with us, though he had lost his saddlebags, and beyond him I could see the other spare horses, more than half a score.

An arrow shot close by my face and glanced harmlessly off the cuirass of the man ahead of me, startling us all and reminding us abruptly and frighteningly that we had enemies in close pursuit. I raised my bow and reached behind my shoulder for an arrow, only to discover that I had none. I had lost the entire quiver somewhere below, most probably when Donuil had snatched me from the ground. I waved everyone forward and we rode again, spurring our mounts and cursing loudly as we tackled the steep slope above us, all of us painfully aware of the ice beneath our animals' hooves. Mere moments later, the rain came back, lancing down heavily through the fading light of the late afternoon and cutting visibility to where we could barely see the rider ahead of us. The cursing grew louder, but we took some comfort in knowing the enemy were all afoot and must be suffering even more than we were.

The pathway grew rapidly steeper and narrower, slippery and treacherous underfoot. It swung around to the left, where we found ourselves on an exposed slope, with a steep cliff above us and a yawning chasm falling away on our right. Far out, above the mist shrouded valley below, a jagged fork of lightning flashed and was mirrored instantaneously by a much closer one. Shelagh rode directly ahead of me now, and in front of her several of the spare horses followed three troopers, who rode directly behind Donuil. Beyond Donuil I could see Benedict's red crested helmet and in front of him rode Tress, with another trooper on her left. Another arrow fell in front of me, wobbling spent and harmless. I turned in my saddle to look back, but there was nothing there to see. I felt sure that this was a parting shot, a last, defiant arrow. We had beaten our pursuers.

It was then that my horse reared, whinnying in panic. Ahead, I saw one of our horses, its legs kicking wildly as it fell from the pathway into the void beneath. The scene ahead of me was terror and madness, a mass of rearing, plunging animals and milling arms. A second horse went over the edge, a rider clinging to its back, and I saw another flailing human form plummeting down.

Directly in front of me, Shelagh's horse slipped and fell, sliding backwards into my mount and kicking the legs from beneath him. As he went down, I threw myself from the saddle, sideways, to my left. Shelagh landed flat on her back in front of me. I heard a splintering crack as I fell sprawling and felt something give, sickeningly, beneath me. Stunned, I waited for the pain that must surely accompany such a sound, but I felt nothing other than the solidness of the ice covered earth. I looked down then, and saw that the noise had been the splintering of my bow, the mighty and ancient Varrus longbow, which now lay broken and useless beneath me. In a curious condition of mindlessness, I stared at it, thinking that this weapon had been more than a hundred years old, cared for by generations of proud owners, and now it was shattered and dead.

I snapped back to awareness. People had fallen! I scrambled to my feet and saw that Shelagh had not moved; she lay with her arms and legs sprawled wide. In that same glance, I saw someone else, on the far side of the path—a helmet and shoulders, hands clutching at the icy edge of the pathway and huge eyes peering terror stricken into mine. I threw myself forward in a dive, reaching for those arms, but they fell away before I could grasp them. I landed face down on the ice and slid forward on my metal cuirass, head first, over the edge. I twisted violently, reaching frantically for a handhold, and fell, only to find myself arrested and dangling by one leg, upside down over the abyss.

I have no knowledge of how long I hung there, but I remember some of the thoughts that went through my head. I knew that I was hanging suspended by one of the metal greaves I wore on my legs. It had evidently snagged on some protrusion, perhaps a sapling or a root. Only two thin leather straps secured that greave against my leg. If either of them broke, the other would snap, too, and I would fall head first. I knew that my sword was still safely at my back, for as I fell it had slipped freely through the metal ring between my shoulders, and its cross guard had lodged beneath the neck flap of my helmet. I could feel the weight of it, pressing against my helmet and pushing it forward onto my brow, forcing my chinstrap hard against my jaws to choke me. Someone far below me was moaning in agony, and lightning still flickered in the darkening sky, setting thunder rolling in great, crashing, concussive waves. And the rain still poured.