Dark Magic (36 page)

He tried to stop thinking and to focus on covering ground as quickly as possible. He had been forced to carry the babe far too long. The mother, off to milk the cows as they lowed for relief at dawn, would not be absent forever. Already, she might have come back to check on her sleeping infant. If that were the case, he would return to the outlying farm and be treated to her screaming and histrionics, something he’d heard quite enough of lately. Shifting into the form of her babe then would arouse strong suspicions. Not even the River Folk were that gullible. She would have a ward on his neck before the day was out, and then all would be lost.

He tried to keep his mind on the positive as he ran. She was a lovely, lonely maid. Perfect for Piskin’s purposes. He’d taken his time with his choice, hunting amongst a dozen young wives for one who truly piqued his interest. He had to account his luck as good in this one regard: many new folk had come into the Haven from wilder lands of late. They were often wide-eyed, simple people who’d never seen anything outside of their home villages. The Riverton council handed out title to parcels of scrub land all along the Havenwood, and let them scratch out a living there as they might. They built their tiny cabins and dugouts, and soon enough began raising fine litters.

Piskin had held out for the
best
this time. He’d found plenty of sagging matrons with a half-dozen brats crawling around their skirts, but they did nothing for him. A thorough search had paid off in time, at last bringing into his sights a charming female with apple cheeks and a tiny, upturned nose. She was full of life and song, humming as she worked the day alone in her tiny cabin long the Berrywine. Her husband left early, as soon as the sun rose, to work at a sawmill downriver. The situation was perfect, except for one thing: a damnably long run from Rabing Isle, not even mentioning the cold swim.

He’d watched the maid and her habits for days before making his move and stealing the babe. First thing every fair day, she saw off her husband, fed the babe, and then went to milk the cows and perform countless other chores around the tiny farm.

Piskin, peeping in through chinks in the hastily constructed cabin, had bounded in the window and stole the babe in a thrice. Taking great leaps as he ran, he’d made off into the woods with the child immediately. He’d wanted to put as much distance between himself and the mother as possible before the babe fully awoke and began bawling. After depositing it upon Rabing Isle as he’d promised, he now traveled with even greater speed back toward the farm.

The bloodhound had been able to keep up when Piskin had been weighed down with the babe, but was now left behind. It set up a most pitiful baying, and Piskin was forced to gather it up and carry it, even as he had the babe. He cursed and muttered, but bore the hound as fast as he could. There was no time to lose.

As it was, he barely made it. She was stepping in the doorway, even as he popped in the window and dove into the cradle. He changed into a fair semblance of her brat in a moment, and hoped she wouldn’t be wise to him.

She came forward hesitantly. She frowned at him, and he tried to act like a baby, but it was difficult. He was out of practice and annoyed.

“What are you frowning about, sweets?” she asked. “My you must be kicking hard, the entire cradle is rocking.”

Believing he might have pulled it off, Piskin kicked and cooed. It was all coming back to him now.

She stood over him, and her face softened. That worried look, the suspecting one he hated so much, faded from her brow.

Piskin knew he shouldn’t, but he had waited so long he couldn’t help himself. He gave his hunger cry. He squeezed his eyes tightly and worked tiny fists in the air.

“Are you hungry
again?
” she asked, coming near. “You are a greedy little fellow today.”

She picked him up and took him to the rocker. Piskin allowed himself a smirk. He had found a new home.

Chapter Fifteen

The Kindred Boil

Atop Snowdon there sat a cap of ice that had yet to melt in the spring sunshine. Up there, all was peaceful, with cold breezes and bright skies.

Hidden beneath the hollowed mountaintop lay the Kindred city. There, Gudrin and her folk were hard at work. It had been a busy month indeed beneath Snowdon. Instead of a single prototype of the walking, crab-like machines known to their ancestors as
crawlers
, they now had more than thirty. There were different constructs too. Golems, a full squad of them, stood with infinite, motionless patience. Each more than a dozen feet tall and nearly as wide, they were armed and armored with heavy axes in each seven-fingered fist. When the time came, these beings of cold stone, animated by the spirits of captured earth elementals, would unleash all their pent up fury, taking out their rage at being captives upon whatever flesh dared draw near. Until activated, the granite golems stood stock still, only their eyes hinting at the seething hate that lived inside.

Gudrin had personally worked the forges to help construct the steam-driven bombards. Looking like gigantic tilted urns, they rode on four wheels and required twenty goats or Kindred to drag them. They had precious few bombards as yet, only a handful. She had personally cut their trigger mechanisms and bloomed out their pot-bellied boilers from single blocks of glinting brass. She, with a single finger of white-hot flame, could cut and mold metal as others would shape clay or candle wax, but she could not be everywhere at once.

The first of the great bombards had exploded upon use. This wasn’t entirely unexpected, but three mechnicians had suffered ghastly wounds and lost limbs in the process. Perhaps, Gudrin thought regretfully, after the wars that were coming she would sculpt them clockwork limbs so they might do useful work again.

The second bombard had operated properly. Using the south wall of Snowdon as a target, the machine had hurled a series of bouncing stone balls more than two thousand paces. Fortunately, no one died in the mushroom fields when the shots fell short. After a hundred or so firings, she declared the bombard functional, and ordered that six more be built.

The majority of the smiths worked on arms and armor, naturally. Although not as impressive or terrifying as their war machines, the backbone of any Kindred army had always been their heavy infantry. Thousands of scaled suits and heavy, beaked helms were manufactured in an organized fashion. To supplement the work, she threw open the doors of her armory, which fortunately had escaped the wrath of Fafnir in the basements of the crumbled citadel. There, shining as they had in the darkness for a thousand years, lay an axe for every Kindred beneath Snowdon.

The expedition she had ordered into the Everdark after the kobold raiders had failed to find the enemy in the upper galleries. They had returned, as ordered, after searching a mile deepward into the depths.

Gudrin gritted her teeth as she listened to the shamed captain’s report. They had not moved fast enough. They had even lost a dozen or so troops to the endless traps of the enemy. A complete win for the kobolds, well-executed. She thanked the commander for following her orders, for having not led his troops to their final destruction.

“They planned the entire thing. They worked hard to frustrate you, to bring you so deep you could not retreat. You did well to return.”

“I failed,” said the captain, abjectly. “The least I could do was follow your orders, my queen.”

Gudrin nodded. She pursed her lips. She fought down her anger. She felt the need to strike the captain, but that was just Pyros flaring up. She wondered, not for the first time, how things might have gone if Modi or Hallr had gained possession of the Orange. They would have gone feral the moment they tasted warm ale and slain the innkeep. She almost smiled at the thought, but did not want to confuse her captain, who expected at the very least harsh words.

“It’s my judgment that you did well, considering the circumstances. It was my failure to order the reprisal be so quick and undermanned. There will be no such mistake again. We will take two squadrons of the crawlers down this time, each with a full regiment of warriors in new armor will follow behind each squadron of machines.”

“‘We’, my queen?”

She nodded. “I will command the second regiment and the expedition. We must test these machines anyway. The kobolds are to be plucked squalling from their holes.”

“Yes—yes, my queen,” said the captain, eyes wide.

And so the following morning they marched. They encountered many traps, as she expected. Kobold sappers had been as hard at work as her own people. But the wisdom of the new crawler design soon showed itself effective. When great blocks fell upon them, they did not crack open, and the killing tines were able to lift away the blocks and shunt them aside.

Always, the expedition continued, making rapid, deepward progress. When they passed the upper galleries and were more than a mile deep, the magnesium bowels began. That region was fraught with its own unique dangers, but at least the troops could spread out and breathe something besides the choking fumes of the crawlers.

It was among the dusty hillocks of the bowels that the first enemy attacks came. Showers of a black-headed darts fell among them. Most clanked upon scales, helms or upraised shields. Rarely, however, they sunk into a crescent of exposed flesh. Grunting in pain, troopers snapped the darts off and tossed them away, or sagged down, depending on the location of the strike. When the Kindred charged their tormentors, the enemy melted away into bolt holes and behind crags. Fully armed and armored, the heavier troops could not catch them.

Gudrin ordered her crawlers to spread out on a wider front, flanking the troopers. Each tunnel they came upon was shot full with gouts of dribbling wet flame. The Kindred smiled grimly when bubbling screams erupted.

Onward they marched, snapping crossbows at the elusive kobolds that continued to harry their flanks. She kept up a killing pace, letting the wounded drop where they may. Exposed in the relatively open area of the bowels, she could not afford to wait. They must reach the enemy villages and force them to engage in defense of their territory.

After two days in the bowels, scouts returned with news of a broad shaft that led to signs of heavy habitation. They followed the trail, and met up with their first true resistance.

A surprising number of kobolds made their stand at the mouth of their cave. They snapped darts, sprang up from beneath hidden dusty holes in the midst of the Kindred ranks and stabbed any back they could reach. A few Kindred fell, and Gudrin had to admire the kobold spirit. They were all quickly overwhelmed by the heavy armament of her troopers, however. The crawlers jerked forward with their killing tines and ran the enemies through. Showers of crossbows snapped in answer to the darts. The unarmored ranks of the kobolds trading fire with them, but soon grew ragged and broke.

The Kindred pursued them, whooping, into the broad cavern. Surely, an enemy village must lie within. Instead of a helpless village, however, they ran into an ambush. Side tunnels ran to either side. A dozen huge elders charged from both flanks against them. They each carried a stone club, the usual weapon of larger kobolds. Those clubs, while fearsome weapons when wielded by ten foot elders, were not what caught Gudrin’s attention. The weapons that each elder held in its off-hand were far more riveting.

They were lances, silver-tipped, of a fine length and wand-like thinness as to arouse her suspicions immediately. The kobolds were, simply put, incapable of producing such elegant weaponry.

There was no time to call a retreat. The corridor was broad enough for two crawlers or ten Kindred to march abreast, but it still narrowed her regiments into a column. Then the raging elders rushed into their thin column, the results were spectacularly bloody.

Great clubs crashed down, dashing Kindred to the dusty black floor. Bones broken, the Kindred troopers struggled back up, still game, only to be dashed down again and again. Worse, much worse, were the lances. They sizzled when they struck, flashing with an unnatural shine in the dark tunnel. They sank thorough upraised shields and punched into scales, even through helms. Like dolls stuck through with hot needles, the Kindred inside their armor were pinioned, but fought on until the broken tips of the lances wended their way quickly to still each great beating heart. They bled to death inside their own newly-forged armor.

“Crawlers, charge left flank!” she screamed over the din. “Right flank, get out of my way NOW!”

Her troopers, realizing the queen herself shouted the orders, hastened to obey. She rushed to the right, and for the first time wielded Pyros in battle. The elder kobolds, thinking her a fool, came on toward her.

Like a puff of dragonflame, she opened her jaws wide and with the help of Pyros breathed a cone of pure heat into their faces. They melted to slag, then ash. Only stinking smoke, blackened stone clubs and the strange silvery lances remained when her long exhale ended. She stumped forward, unconcerned about the slaughter behind her on the left flank. She knew her crawlers would thrust their killing tines in unison and tear apart the elders. Lances and clubs were useless against them.

She kicked aside a huge kobold leg bone that ended in a steaming, broiled foot. She bent forward and grabbed up one of the lances. It was red hot in her hands, but she felt nothing. She eyed the lance suspiciously, then nodded her head, seeing the runes running up the sides. It was a Fae weapon. Of that much she was sure.

When the elders were swept from the corridors, the last of the defenders lost heart. She steeled herself for the slaughter that followed. The machines hunted down each kobold, tiny young spratlings and hunkering chieftains alike, and slew them all. As she had commanded, they were plucked from their holes mewling and slain.

She shuddered only once during the proceedings, then ordered her regiments to fall back.

“Shall we drive deeper, my queen?” asked the captain whose first mission had failed here. He had a light in his eyes she knew well, reminding her of Modi. He had blood in his teeth, and like all vengeance it tasted sweet to him.

She showed him the lance. He shrugged, admitting it to be of Fae make.

“All the more reason to destroy them now, while we have them at an advantage.”

Gudrin nodded slowly. “Wise thinking, but I am wiser still, captain.”

The other blinked at her.

“We are not fighting the kobolds here,” she told him. “The kobolds serve our greater enemies. If we hadn’t brought the machines or if I hadn’t been here to wield Pyros, the kobolds might well have won the day.”

“I don’t know if—” he began.

“Well, I do know, captain,” she said quickly. “If we press hard now, we might well slaughter a dozen more villages. But in so doing, we will meet more resistance like this. We will suffer losses and risk disaster. Worse, what if there are more surprises, deeper down? What awaits us?”

The captain frowned. “We can’t know.”

She frowned and paced. Her armor smoked from the heat of Pyros still, but she ignored the wisps rising up from her burnt gloves. “The Kindred can’t afford to lose these machines, or Pyros. We aren’t fighting kobolds here, they are sponsored by others. We don’t know who is in league with them, who we might meet down here.”

“Shall I order a withdrawal?” he asked her.

She smiled at him. He had passed a private test of hers. He was no coward, but no fool, either. That was the kind of warrior she needed in the war she foresaw.

“You are raised in rank, captain. You are to command the Great Gates garrison now.”

“Yes, my queen,” said the captain, looking surprised.

“Now, order your troops to withdraw in good order. We return to the Earthlight. And pray, warrior, no more surprises await us there or on the journey.”

* * *

Puck, who now made regular polite visits to Rabing Isle with Brand’s grudging approval, had never told the humans what he was looking for. But when Lanet appeared with a newborn in her arms, and he inquired politely about it, she had hesitantly told him the tale of its mysterious appearance.

Puck had made a point of presenting fine gifts on each of his visits, but he reserved his best for the babe. He gave Lanet a flower, a violet of brilliant lavender.

“If you keep it near the babe, no changeling can come near,” he told her.

Her face altered sharply when he said the word changeling. It was more of a hint than he needed. She had encountered his less scrupulous cousins before.

“Never will the flower fade,” he told her, “as long as the stem is kept moist and the petals kept dry. If a single raindrop touched the petals, it will disintegrate into the dust it truly is.”

Lanet, eyes intrigued, nodded and thanked him.

Puck took his leave and then began his search. He did not search for Piskin, who was naturally disguised. Instead, he sought the telltale hound, which Piskin would never allow to stray far.

And so it was that on the dawn of the fourth day he found the hound and took after it. He slashed it in twain, and followed it into the tiny cabin, where it crawled toward its master.

Puck stood in the doorway, his shadow casting long over the bloodhound, which dragged itself toward Piskin in his cradle. The hound left behind it a long red trail on the fresh-swept floor.