Wayfinder's Story Page 22

  The next time he dove his mount low enough to get a close look at the fighting around Mark, the Ancient One beheld, to his own freezing horror, the hulking, foul image of the king-demon Orcus—a being now ages dead, along with Ardneh his great antagonist.

  Putting aside the initial shock of this perception, Wood summoned up his intelligence and will, gritted his teeth, and stubbornly denied what both his eyes and his best magical perception were assuring him to be true.

  That was Mark. And with the two Swords, Mark was winning.

  * * *

  A number of Wood’s people, who as a rule were more afraid of their master than of any other conceivable enemy—or at least of Mark—fought like fanatics.

  But on encountering the armed Prince of Tasavalta, a majority of these unfortunates perceived Mark as Wood, and they saw confronting them a figure even more terrible in its wrath than the original. And the very terror with which the Ancient One had sought to bind his fighters to him, resulted in their defection.

  Yambu had been struck down, and was out of action for the time being.

  Those of the Prince’s friends who were still fighting beside him could only hope, if they should lose sight of Mark for a moment, that when they again saw a figure they took to be him, it was not really that of Wood or another enemy instead.

  * * *

  For Wood, snarling rage was giving way to a kind of calm. He prepared to risk everything on a single move.

  “My plan is failing, because my fools down there lack wit and nerve to execute it properly. Very well, then. I see I must grapple with him myself.”

  Wood, meaning to hurl himself unarmed on Mark, reined his griffin round to circle in a wide loop, gaining momentum for a final charge. Meaning to hurl himself unarmed on Mark, he began divesting himself of weapons right and left—but stopped when he came to Woundhealer and Wayfinder, sheathed at his side.

  “Not yet. Both Swords may have to go, but only at the last moment, when I’ll know that he still has Shieldbreaker in hand.”

  * * *

  Mark’s tiring riding-beast tripped and fell, hurling him violently to the ground. Though protected against all enemy weapons, Mark had been knocked out of the saddle by accident.

  The Prince lay temporarily stunned. Zoltan, being closest to him on his right side, grabbed up Shieldbreaker.

  Val, who was in the best position on the other side, took up Sightblinder, which had fallen from Mark’s left hand.

  Moments later, having seen from a distance how their Prince went down, Karel and some of the Tasavaltan cavalry attacked fiercely, and broke through to surround and defend him.

  In the double confusion of a melee and a joyful reunion, Valdemar was easily able, even though he lacked Sightblinder, to step away without being noticed.

  * * *

  The Ancient One, circling away momentarily, failed to see Mark go down.

  Coming back, swooping very low to the ground for a final attack, Wood observed only a confused struggle in the place where he expected Mark to be. The Ancient One’s hopes rose—perhaps his plan of attack had succeeded after all.

  The griffin, great wings blurring with its speed, roared low above the struggling throng, sustaining what to it were minor wounds from Tasavaltan stones and arrows.

  Closing swiftly on the knot of central activity where Mark must be, Wood saw Zoltan standing in the Tasavaltan ranks.

  Shieldbreaker would be down on the ground there, somewhere underneath that scramble. The direct attack on Mark would have to wait for his next pass—or if the Prince was already slain, such a desperate tactic would be, after all, unnecessary. But here was another choice target, and this run would not be wasted. Swerving his mount slightly at full speed to meet the altered target, the Ancient One swung Wayfinder with all his strength against Zoltan—and the world seemed to explode with tremendous violence in Wood’s face.

  The shocked griffin literally somersaulted in midair, and the body of its rider went hurtling from the saddle. Some of the onlookers were quick-witted enough to realize almost immediately that Wood must have swung Wayfinder against Shieldbreaker, and that the Sword of Wisdom had been dazzlingly destroyed.

  * * *

  In every quarter of the field, increasing numbers of enemy soldiers were panicking into flight. No matter how thoroughly their secret training had prepared them for a fight against two overwhelming Swords, the reality was overwhelming, and they found themselves unable to stand against it.

  The surviving Tasavaltan troopers, taking heart from the fall of their archenemy, fought all the harder.

  The physical combat flared and receded and flared again. The fighting was fierce, the slaughter great, the number of fallen in blue and silver much larger than those in blue and green. Wood had been determined to wear down his foe by numbers, if he could win in no other way.

  * * * * * *

  Mark, still sprawled on the ground, but now fiercely protected by his friends and his surrounding troops, was starting to regain consciousness.

  Part of his trouble was due to the strain of carrying two such Swords into battle at the same time. Karel now was at the Prince’s side, mumbling a reminder of his own warnings on the subject; but at the same time the elderly wizard protected Mark and all the Tasavaltan forces against anything that Wood’s lesser magicians were able to try against them.

  * * *

  Valdemar, his perceptions enhanced by having Sightblinder in his grip, went running toward the place where he had seen Wood’s plummeting body strike the earth. The crashing weight had half-collapsed a large tent in an area of the battlefield now otherwise deserted.

  Inside the standing portion of the tent, Valdemar discovered that the falling body, half-armored in bright metal, had torn its way right through the fabric as it came down. The corpse lay on its back, rain falling on the face, the whole head looking hideously altered from the human. The terrible wound of Shieldbreaker’s latest riposte showed plainly in the center of the chest, where armor of steel and high magic had been shredded as effortlessly as skin.

  The Sword of Mercy still reposed in its sheath at the waist of the dead wizard.

  The proof of the identity of this deformed and otherwise nearly unrecognizable corpse was in its right hand: dead fingers still gripping the black hilt of what had been the Sword of Wisdom, the hilt itself still bearing a stump of broken blade, once-magnificent metal dulled and lifeless now.

  After the briefest of hesitations, the young man identified the sheathed and intact Sword beyond any doubt: he did this by drawing it forth and using it to treat his own small injuries recently received in battle.

  Then Valdemar, working quietly and quickly and unobserved inside this half-collapsed pavilion, wrapped up Woundhealer in tent fabric, having used the blade itself to cut a piece to size. And then he promptly made off with it, trusting to Sightblinder in his right hand to afford him an unimpeded exit from the battlefield.

  Valdemar had no trouble justifying this action to himself. The fight seemed to have been won, or at least was in a lull, with every prospect for an eventual Tasavaltan victory.

  He told himself that he had done his share, and more than his share, of the necessary fight against the evil folk who would have hounded Delia to her death or worse—their glorious enemy, the Prince of Tasavalta, was still alive, now protectively surrounded by his own fiercely defensive troops, all of them, unlike Valdemar, trained fighters.

  Overshadowing all other considerations, of course, was the fact that Delia desperately needed help, the help that he could bring her now—and that he feared might never reach her, if he were to trust the Sword of Mercy to someone else.

  With both leaders now fallen, a lull had fallen over the field of combat. The enemy had retreated to regroup, or were perhaps recovering from a rout, or else they were following the Tasavaltans who in turn were trying to retreat with their injured Prince. Val could not immediately see just what was happening, and in fact he did not greatly care. He moved out bol
dly, armed with the Sword of Stealth.

  Making steady progress, not looking back, he separated himself from whatever was left of the battle. He was going to bring help and healing to the woman he loved.

  He told himself as he trudged away that after he and Delia were safely out of trouble, the Prince of Tasavalta would be welcome to the Sword—to all the Swords.

  The Prince had not seemed a bad man, but Valdemar really put little faith in Mark’s promises of help—obviously the Prince was going to be fully engaged in his own problems for some indefinite time to come.

  Val could not blame him. In Mark’s place, he would have done the same.

  * * *

  Presently the fighting flared up again around the Prince and his close companions, so that their search for the now-missing Valdemar, just tentatively begun, had to be abandoned for a time.

  Zoltan and Ben exchanged guesses as to whether Valdemar had been killed. Of course there was nothing to be done about it if he had been.

  Men had been dispatched to look for Wood’s body, for he might have been carrying a Sword or two. The corpse of the fallen wizard was discovered, and, with the help of Karel, recognized. But no unbroken Swords were with it.

  Sightblinder was gone from the field, but Shieldbreaker in Zoltan’s hand fought on, with devastating effect. Any minions of Wood whose morale had survived the loss of their leader, and who were still misguided enough to strike directly, with material weapons, at the holder of the Sword of Force, saw their spears and swords and missiles shattered and broken, and they themselves were slaughtered when they came within range of Shieldbreaker’s matchless force.

  Similarly, any who tried to attack that person with magic saw their spells, too, broken by the Sword of Force. Some minor wizards in Wood’s camp expired with startling visual effects.

  And again and yet again, cleverly trained and fanatically led, one frantic would-be wrestler after another cast down his weapons and tried to close with the figure assumed to be Mark.

  Again and again that man’s new bodyguard beat back these attempts with ordinary blades, cudgels, skill and strength.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Valdemar, struggling against exhaustion after the prolonged fighting, kept moving as fast as he could, trudging on through rain and muck. He snatched brief periods of rest, when quivering knees and faintness told him that he must.

  In the first stage of his journey, carrying two Swords, he passed many wounded, numbers of them crying out pitiably. Setting his jaw, he closed his ears to the sounds of pain and carried Woundhealer wrapped and hidden past the victims of the fighting, telling himself that he had already done more than his share for the Tasavaltan cause. At moments when he closed his eyes, every groan of pain seemed to be sounding in Delia’s voice. He kept on moving as quickly and steadily as he could, back toward his beloved.

  When Valdemar was half a kilometer from the camp, he thought he heard the sounds of battle started up behind him yet again. He did not look back, but kept going, and the noises slowly faded once more.

  Resting only when his weariness compelled, Valdemar traveled for about an hour before coming in sight of the abandoned hut where he had left Delia. Running the last few meters, calling her name, he heard a welcome answer, and found her inside waiting for him.

  He remembered to put Sightblinder away before he entered.

  Delia, lying almost exactly where Val had left her, cried out to him in weak but joyous welcome.

  Woundhealer drawn, he rushed forward to his woman’s side.

  * * *

  Minutes later, the couple were resting and eating, preparatory to starting their long journey to Valdemar’s vineyard, when a dull shadow fell across the doorway, blocking the dim light of the rainy day. Val looked up to glimpse a massive figure clad in Wood’s blue and silver livery.

  The young man had taken off his belt, and left both Swords imprudently just out of easy reach. In the next instant Val lunged for them, only to be felled by a stunning blow on head and shoulder.

  “Good day to you both, young folks,” said Sergeant Brod.

  Delia hurled herself on the intruder, but Brod, laughing, easily caught her and clamped her wrists behind her back in one of his huge hands.

  He said: “Things have gone a little wrong with the Master’s magic—but I see the spell he gave me to find you here is still working just fine.”

  But on taking a good look at the woman he had just caught, who continued to squirm and hiss and scratch, Brod had some difficulty in believing this ordinary-looking female had once been Tigris—even though he had never had a good look at the enchantress. It seemed to the Sarge that Wood’s long-range punishment had been devastatingly effective. In fact, if Wood had not thoughtfully provided him with a certain magical means of identification, he would probably have failed to recognize her at all.

  Val lay on the floor of the hut groaning, by all indications unable to move.

  The Sarge, making sure he had Delia in a safe grip, bent over to get his first good look at the weapons on the earthen floor, the tools Val had just been trying to reach. He was astonished and momentarily distracted by what he saw.

  “Swords!—by all the gods!”

  Shifting his grip on Delia’s arms, he muttered: “Let’s jus’ see which ones we got…” And bent over, meaning to look closely at the black hilts projecting from the swordbelt.

  * * *

  It was now or never. Val, seeing double, his head and neck aflame with pain, a deadly weakness dragging all his limbs, summoned up what strength he could and hurled himself forward, grappling Brod around the knees.

  Brod struck viciously at his assailant, stretching the already injured man out helpless on the floor. But he had to let go of Delia in the process.

  In the moment when Brod was busy defending himself from Val, Delia managed to pull one of her hands free. Diving to reach the Swords, she was able to pull Sightblinder from its sheath.

  With the same movement of her arm, she threw the weapon as far as she could, so it went flying into a far corner of the hut.

  When Brod instinctively released her and went plunging after the Sword, she stuck out a leg and tripped him, so that he came down with a slam that drove the breath out of his body. A moment later she had seized Woundhealer and without hesitation thrust its bright blade straight into her lover’s chest.

  The Sarge, regaining his feet and lunging forward once more after the tantalizingly available Sword of Stealth, had almost got his fingers on its hilt when the great weight of Valdemar’s body, once more fully functional, landed on him from behind. Skidding forward with Val’s momentum, both men went crashing out through the old hut’s flimsy wall.

  Wrestling hand to hand, the two went rolling over and over. Brod’s effort to knee his opponent failed. Valdemar’s huge arms quivered, straining against muscles every bit as powerful as his own.

  Suddenly the Sarge stiffened, looking over Valdemar’s shoulder at a terrible male figure that towered above them both. The figure’s blue eyes glared, its empty hands were extended in the gesture of a wizard about to loose a blasting curse.

  Valdemar saw nothing of this apparition. He only felt Brod’s body convulse, and heard him scream out: “Master Wood!” before he retched up blood and died.

  Turning, Valdemar beheld only Delia. He saw her in her true form, for she had let go the hilt of Sightblinder, whose blade remained embedded deeply in Brod’s heart.

  Val, struggling to his feet, recalled once urging Ben to use Woundhealer to save this very man. And Val muttered now: “No. No more. You’ve had enough chances.”

  * * *

  Tethered at a little distance from the hut they found Brod’s riding-beast, along with a spare mount saddled and ready. The saddlebags of both animals contained food and other useful items.

  “He said something, didn’t he, about having been sent to bring me back?” Delia shuddered.

  “It wasn’t you they really wanted, love. It was that other woman, T
igris.”

  “I don’t want to hear about her, or think about her.”

  In less than half an hour the pair, wishing with all their souls to put the horrors of their last few days behind them, were hastening away from the scene of their most recent struggle.

  * * * * * *

  Delia, her spirits risen again with the return and triumph of her lover, began to play with Woundhealer, giggling and marveling at the inability of this sharp Blade to cut her fingers off, or even scratch them.

  How different this Sword from the one that had so treacherously hurt Val’s fingers earlier!

  Watching her perform such tricks gave Val the shivers, and he ordered her to stop. For once in a meek mood, she obeyed without a murmur.

  Valdemar noted also, with belated apprehension, that the Sword of Mercy had only partially, if at all, restored Delia’s memory. He supposed that Wood’s expunging of her evil experiences, both as perpetrator and victim, would not be construed as an injury.

  Somehow, out of renewed spirits and talk of a future that suddenly seemed clear, the topic of marriage came under discussion.

  The urge for wedlock came with the greatest intensity upon Valdemar. His sense of propriety, an innate conservatism in matters of society and morals, was really stronger than Delia’s.

  Delia wondered aloud if she was too young for matrimony, and whether she ought to take such a step without consulting her mother.

  “Would that be possible?” her companion asked, vaguely surprised.

  “No. No, I don’t see how. I don’t know if she’s still alive.”