The Fall of Neskaya (44 page)

He pushed himself away from the stone parapet. Beginning a few days ago, men had been trickling into camp, some so exhausted they fell unconscious and died. What in Zandru’s seventh frozen hell had gone wrong?

Rumor swept through Acosta of a resounding defeat in which Prince Belisar had run away to save his cowardly life. Some spoke of the demonic power of the Hastur lord, who used his sorcery to curse men from afar with lingering death. Damian’s own guard caught a man spreading these tales and hanged him naked from the castle gates. After that, such things were spoken only in whispers.

Damian muttered curses under his breath. This sense of drifting was nothing more than the result of the weather. If only the clouds would gather and thunder break. He would welcome a lightning storm with all its glorious savageness.

Where was The Yellow Wolf? Where was that worthless sandal-wearing brother of his? And
where was Belisar?

The last Rumail had seen of his nephew was the rump of the roan mare, galloping for all she was worth. Belisar was leaning over her neck, pounding her slatted sides with his heels. Men scattered before him, watching him with eyes pale with consternation. Rumail caught their unvoiced words,
Why is our Prince and commander running away?
Within moments, Belisar disappeared into the throng of mounted men and foot soldiers.

Good,
Rumail thought. With any luck, and barring the nag breaking a leg, the royal heir should be well clear of the area to be contaminated.

A moment before Belisar’s departure, Rumail had reined his mule apart from the main body of Ambervale men in their orderly withdrawal. He needed concentration to accomplish his next task, to keep the Hastur scum from harrying the Prince. From his saddlebags, he drew out three mechanical devices, fashioned in the size and shape of small hawks.

The thought flickered through Rumail’s mind that if he delayed, if Belisar were caught and killed, then he, Rumail, might well be the heir to Ambervale and all its possessions. As quickly, he brushed aside the notion as unworthy. At one time, it might have seriously tempted him, but he had grown beyond the desire for simple kingship. Now he knew better. The key to ruling Darkover did not lie in the might of ordinary arms. This day’s battle proved that decisively. Without their
laran
, the Hastur would have been easy prey.

Brows furrowed, Rumail studied the
laran
-powered devices. The bonewater dust which filled their fragile glass bellies was intended only as a last resort. If this was not a situation of last resort, with Belisar’s freedom and perhaps his life at stake, then what was? Unchecked, the Hastur forces might well plunge on into Acosta. They had momentum, confidence and leadership on their side. With their
laranzu’in
, they might even lay a successful siege to Acosta Castle itself. And if Damian could take the castle, then so could Rafael Hastur.

They must be stopped, no matter what the price, or all might be lost, far more than Belisar’s cowardly skin.

The bonewater dust, quiescent now, with only a faint greenish pinpoint radiance, had been purchased from the renegade circle in Temora at an obscene cost, since Tramontana insisted they were unable to produce it.

Unable?
he’d wondered.
Or simply unwilling?
As soon as he could convince Damian, he meant to travel there and institute proper obedience. Since he could not train up his own circle, not in the time these momentous events demanded, he must take control of an established Tower. Being Keeper of a fully trained circle would be a very different affair than struggling to draw together unsuitable, undisciplined novices. Tramontana and then Neskaya would fall into his hands like ripened plums.

He established a link with the small starstone guide chips set in each device and tossed them into the air. The guidance mechanisms were so simple, he effortlessly controlled all three of them. Mechanical wings whirred as they gained altitude. He followed them with his mind as they navigated the air currents, never drifting on thermals as would natural birds, but heading unerringly toward the sky above the oncoming Hastur force.

Not too high . . .
He wanted a limited area of dispersal, so as little of the surrounding area as possible would be polluted. The poison would last for generations, rendering the Drycreek area impassable to all but suicidal fools.

Rumail brought the mechanical birds lower. He could not follow them with his physical eyes, only with his
laran
senses. He gave the
Release
signal. Glass cracked and shattered into myriad tiny shards.

Dust began its slow, inexorable fall toward the Hastur soldiers. Rumail looked up, squinting, as it caught the sunlight. It had never occurred to him that it might be so beautiful, sparkling and glowing in the sun. Men on both sides paused to look up.

With death drifting from the skies, those Hastur fools stood gaping at their doom. Suddenly a breeze sprang up, as if from the bellows of Zandru’s forge.

It blew the unnatural poison back toward Rumail and his own men.

Rumail pulled his mule to a halt. Gesturing, he shouted and pointed in the direction of the retreat.

“Flee! Flee for your lives!”

Those closest to him took heed and bolted, some dropping their weapons and packs. Others paid no attention or looked to their own officers, if they could find them in the growing chaos. Ordinary dust billowed up, choking man and beast.

Taking out his starstone on its chain around his neck, Rumail focused on its depths, using its resonances to amplify his
laran
. He launched his mind aloft, into the currents of air, and felt a wash of relief. This was a natural wind and not one created by psychic meddling with weather patterns. The Aldarans were rumored to do this on a huge scale, and most circles could manipulate rain clouds to some degree. That is, when their Keepers allowed them, without the usual endless agonizing over disrupting natural patterns and causing unforeseen consequences elsewhere, a drought here or a flood there, all from moving a few little clouds around. These things doubtless would have happened anyway. Rumail possessed no special talent in controlling weather, but neither was he overly modest about his power as a
laranzu.
He knew enough to contain the breeze and even turn it back on the Hastur forces.

Rumail spread out his psychic senses, mapping out the areas of cooler and warmer air. Nudging the streams of different temperatures, he felt the pressures driving the breeze lessen. A moment more would reverse the air current, sending the deadly powder back toward its target.

A cry, so hoarse as to be barely human, burst through Rumail’s concentration. Blinking, he snapped back to the material world to see a man in Hastur colors rush at him. In a single moment, his vision filled with sky, glowing dust and a reddened face, distorted with fury. The man stumbled, caught his balance, and lifted his arms. Sun flashed on the point of the man’s halberd, aimed upward toward Rumail’s belly.

Without thinking, Rumail jerked the mule’s head and twisted in the saddle. Something struck him in the side, a heavy blow like the kick of a wild
oudrakhi
that sent him tumbling to the ground. The earth rose up to knock the breath from his lungs. Someone shrieked, rising above the shouting, neighing mass.

With a panicked bray, the mule reared up. Rumail tried to roll out of its path. His body felt leaden, unresponsive. Heavy blows battered him. He couldn’t tell if he’d been kicked by the mule or the men rushing past him. His eyes caught the image of the mule’s belly as it leaped over him. He pulled himself into a ball, covering his head with his hands.

Someone hooked him under the armpits and dragged him along the ground. Rocks bit through his clothing, scoring his skin. The pain receded, as if happening to someone else. Roaring filled his ears.

For a long moment, he lay still, tensed against the next blow of hoof or booted foot, but none came. Pain throbbed along his side, over the short ribs, so sudden and intense it took his breath away. He uncurled himself and tried to sit up. The slightest movement escalated the pain. His vision whirled, but he saw that he lay at the base of a little rocky mound, well out of the path of the army.

Gingerly, he reached over with the uninjured hand and brought away fingers sticky with blood.

Rumail lay back and closed his eyes, gathering his strength. Thank all the gods at once, he still had his starstone. The chain had not snapped in his fall. Moving carefully, he gathered it up.

He had only the most basic training as a monitor, lacking the empathy necessary to do the work really well. But now his life depended on his skill.

The pain would be a distraction, so he would have to deal with it, but if he numbed the area, he would not be able to determine the nature of his injuries. He lay very still, keeping his breathing shallow and high in his chest.

Go into the pain,
he told himself.
Immerse yourself in it. Move through it to your goal.
For a moment, he remembered the transfixed expression on Ginevra’s face as she drank in the pain of the young girl—what had her name been? It didn’t matter.

The pain eased somewhat as he penetrated deeper into his own body. Within a few minutes, he knew that the tip of the halberd had slashed through his skin and splintered one of his ribs. The point had pierced his lung, collapsing one lobe. Blood quickly filled the surrounding tissues. Given time, he could heal himself. But if it pinned him here, the wound might nonetheless prove fatal.

Tightening his grasp on his starstone, he focused on the torn tissues—skin, muscle, capillaries, nerves. It would be a slow task to mend them enough so that he could travel.

The first particle of bonewater dust touched him.

In Rumail’s state of heightened
laran
awareness, it burned like
clingfire,
though it was neither hot nor caustic. Desperately, he threw up an energy barrier between himself and the particle and felt it lift, buoyed by the repulsion forces. He shifted his consciousness to sense thousands of them, millions perhaps, hovering in the breeze.

The breeze, he repeated bitterly to himself, which he’d been unable to stop. He wondered if his own death were a fitting payment for that failure.

But he still wanted very much to live. He had not finished all that he wanted to accomplish. In fact, he had just begun to figure out what those things were. Somehow, he had to find a way to survive.

Rumail drew his knees to his chest, making his body as small as he could, and drew upon his trained
laran
to create a shield between himself and the toxic dust.

As he sank into a deep trance, he realized that he had no strength to spare to heal himself. And without the ability to walk, he could not leave the contaminated area. No man alive, nor woman either, could teleport him or her self without the aid of a circle and great artificial matrix screens. He might lie here undiscovered and undisturbed, locked behind the barriers set by his own mind, as his life energies dwindled and guttered out, cinders to ashes.

He was trapped.

Somewhere out there were the Hastur
laranzu’in
, the ones who had shielded themselves from him and masked the encirclement of the army. If he could reach them—

But he must survive, he must. If not for his own sake, then for the vision which he had shared with Damian, and the far greater dream which was his alone.

His last conscious act was to disguise his mental thought pattern as he sent out a plea for help. . . .

A
rider clattered into the Hastur encampment just as dusk was falling. Coryn heard shouting from the tent he shared with several of the junior officers. He had not planned on coming at all, but had agreed at the last moment, hoping for a chance to plead his case privately before Rafael. Surely the King would agree that whatever role
laran
weaponry might play, the Towers themselves must not become involved.

Here in the field, it all seemed a moot point. He had not realized the seriousness—or the desperation—of men in armed conflict. No sane king would throw away his most powerful weapon.

At the same time, Coryn felt sure that neither King Rafael nor his adversary truly understood the magnitude of the forces a Tower controlled. They had never delved miles beneath the surface to raise precious minerals, nor manipulated the energy binding the tiniest particles together, nor touched the vast magnetic and electrical fields of the planet itself. If
laran
could power an aircar or send messages across hundreds of miles, how much more was possible? Yet anything Coryn could say might only strengthen Rafael’s resolve to use the Towers at his command in this or any other war.

Coryn, still biding his time, found the sentry-birds of interest, never having learned to fly one. Neither Tramontana nor Neskaya had any use for the birds, which required the care of a skilled falconer. In this case, the handler was a stocky, middle-aged
laranzu
named Edric, who answered all of Coryn’s questions with grunted monosyllables and kept his
laran
barriers so tightly raised that Coryn suspected he was comfortable only in the presence of his beasts. He, along with Lady Caitlin and the third worker, a shy young woman named Graciela, had ridden out with the main body of the army two days before.