The Golden Shield of IBF (18 page)

The creature shrank back for an instant, as if pausing before its next attack, then flicked its massive tail and swatted Erg’Ran’s horse to the rock floor. Recoiling again for a moment, it sprang toward Erg’Ran, gargantuan head reared, fangs bared.

Erg’Ran half-swung, half-flung his axe, into the juncture of head and throat. The monster screamed torment and bloodlust: the axe head was buried to half its depth, blood spewing from the gaping wound.

Erg’Ran nearly lost his balance, moving too fast for his peg leg. Lunging, he pierced the creature’s abdomen with the point of his sword. He drew out the blade with both hands. Erg’Ran swung the sword as he would an axe, opening a ragged gash a warblade’s length at least along the monster’s midsection.

The beast, blood pouring from its wounds, staggered, fell.

Erg’Ran wrestled his axe from its body, his eyes scanning the plateau. Well out from the column, still mounted, sword in hand, Gar’Ath did battle with another of the beasts. Riding his horse between the creature’s hind legs, Gar’Ath reined back, sprang from his mount and neutered the monster with one mighty swing. Gar’Ath, smeared with blood and gore from head to foot, raised his sword in triumph, the body of his kill collapsing before him.

As Erg’Ran made to see how the others fared, he heard the Enchantress scream. Sword in one hand, axe in the other, Erg’Ran craned his neck, searching for her, ready to charge toward the sound. No monster molested her. She stared, instead, into the night sky. Was there another of the winged beasts like the one which the Champion—“The Champion, Enchantress! The Champion?”

Her voice was a lament, ringing out over Arba’Il’Tac and across the sky to the stars overhead. “Al’An plunges to his death!” the Enchantress cried. The fabric of the air around her contorted, vibrated. There was a burst of light. The Enchantress vanished within it...

Garrison clambered up from the wing and onto the dead creature’s back. With each time that his blood-slicked gloved hands shifted, Garrison risked losing his balance, that he would lose his grip, fall away.

The slipstream viciously tore at him. He felt his face contorting with its force.

The ground was getting closer and closer, faster and faster.

So far, the dead monster’s wings had not yet collapsed. Rather than dropping like a stone, its body followed an erratic glide path, accelerating by the microsecond. Blood pounded in Garrisons temples and the rush of air was so great that his lungs ached. He was losing consciousness, he knew.

“Gotta hold on!” Garrison formed the words, said them he knew, heard nothing but the roaring of the air around him. His eyes were squinted so tightly against the wind’s pressure that he could not make out whether their bodies were about to crash against the unremitting rock of Arba’Il’Tac or into the icy waters of Woroc’Il’Lod beyond.

Garrison’s arms were not long enough to go around the creature’s neck; no human’s arms would have been. But he gripped it as best he could.

“Special Agent Alan Garrison killed in the line of duty,” Garrison thought or may have said aloud. He could no longer be sure. His ears ached and the sound of the wind was becoming progressively duller, like something far away, becoming fainter and fainter. “Cause of death: splattered while clinging to the dead body of a winged monster in some alternate universe place called Creath.”

Garrison thought that he laughed, but he couldn’t be certain. If, somehow, word concerning the manner of and circumstances surrounding Special Agent Alan Garrison’s bizarre death could be gotten to Matt Wisnewski, Special Agent in Charge Wisnewski would be stuck writing paperwork on this until mandatory retirement sneaked up and bit him in the ass!

It was definite now. Alan Garrison was laughing, even though he couldn’t hear it.

Garrison was instantly certain of one thing, however. He could hear Swan telling him that he would be all right. Talk about denial! “Nuts!” Garrison said, describing his own mental condition.

And then he saw this bird, land of pretty really, about the size of a crow, but brown with a red breast like a robin. Its wingspan was pretty substantial. Garrison felt something shudder within him, blinked his eyes the rest of the way shut, then opened them. He tried to say “Crazy!” but Garrison realized that he could no longer talk. Everything had slowed down around him. Even though he still felt the rush of wind, it was somehow more normal seeming, almost pleasant.

That was it, he realized. He was dead already.

There was a light, but it looked more like one of the two moons this place had than some glow of eternal peace. Definitely dead, though, Garrison realized. Because, when he looked below, he could see the great winged creature spiraling downward in the last few seconds before it would go splat all over Arba’Il’Tac. And he could see himself still clinging to the dead monster’s back.

Good-bye, body! He definitely could not make words anymore. This death thing, however, wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be, at least not yet. He was actually enjoying this soaring around in the air routine.

And he wasn’t alone. There was something with him, but he couldn’t communicate with whatever it was.

Oh, well, Garrison tried to say. He would definitely miss Swan; he loved her so much. He just hoped that she’d be able to defeat her mother’s evil forces, and that good old Erg’Ran and Gar’Ath the hotshot would protect her, take care of her.

All the happiness was suddenly gone from him. To make matters worse, Garrison looked below him again and saw the monster strike the stone floor of Arba’Il’Tac. He witnessed his own body being flung from its back, bouncing on the rock a few times—Whoa, that would’ve hurt!—and rolling over twice.

Garrison was coming down, very gently. He could see in much greater detail. The monster’s wings were torn from its body during impact.

Garrison was trying to see his own body, but afraid to see it. Evidently, he had no choice in the matter. He kept going down and down, but easily, controlled, gently.

He crossed over a broad expanse of Arba’Il’Tac, then came to rest on his own chest. There was a lot of blood. His eyes were staring up at the stars, wide open in death.

He thought he saw Swan, but he couldn’t change the direction in which he looked, as if something else controlled his eyes. What eyes?

Yeah, it was Swan. She was looking at him, tears flowing from her big, gorgeous eyes. Everything about her seemed big, tall, very tall, but just as beautiful. Somehow, he felt as if he sat in the palm of her hand. This was interesting. Was this a fantasy, he wondered, that Swan was with him?

Garrison tried forming words again, but could not.

He was looking at her eyes, at her tears, simultaneously wanting to tell her not to cry but that he felt like crying, too.

Swan’s right hand passed over his field of vision. After that, Alan Garrison felt nothing at all but a warm, pleasant darkness.

Chapter Eight

The rhythm of Erg’Ran’s horse’s gait, the creaking of leather, and the clinking of spurs and armaments composed a march more triumphal than circumstances dictated. Yet they had made it this far. Children, chickens, pigs, gar’de’thus, chased by or chasing a yelping dog, scurried from the path of the column, Erg’Ran at its head, Gar’Ath beside him.

The land surrounding the old summer palace was as Erg’Ran remembered it, except for its current inhabitants.

All those who remained alive of the Company of Mir were encamped within the magical boundaries surrounding the castle walls. There were the tents of men at arms, shared with their women and children. Each ridge pole flew the colors of clan or tribe. There were a small number of female warriors, fewer of them still clad fetchingly. One female warrior, auburn hair to her waist, barefoot, wearing a loose-fitting ankle length green dress, a hand-and-a-half sword suspended from her baldric, waved to Erg’Ran and sang out to him. “Ho! Erg’Ran!”

Her name was Liran and they jokingly flirted with each other whenever time and circumstances would permit. She hitched her dress up well above her knees and made a deep, mock curtsy as Erg’Ran rode past. Without trying hard, Erg’Ran viewed what Liran had intended for him to see, the neckline of her dress quite conveniently cut for a spectacular view. “What say you, old friend who can’t keep his eyes off me?”

“I say that it is good to be alive, my pretty friend, and I wish that you were as yet unmarried and my vision were keener still!”

“What a thing to say, Erg’Ran!” Gar’Ath protested. For all his brashness in battle, his swordedge-keen tongue in the face of his enemies, the young swordsman embarrassed easily when it came to women.

Some few of the female warriors, Liran one of them, had brought along children and a husband to care for them.

There were a handful of lusty, large-bosomed camp followers ensconced here along with the Company. Most of the horses from the encampment behind the Falls of Mir had made the trip, but a few had been lost along the treacherous mountain passes. All of the weapons and the tools with which to fabricate more had survived, along with the bulk of the supplies.

The Company of Mir was at its best and greatest strength; and, discounting willing hearts, strong swordarms and glorious truth of purpose, miserably suited to do battle with the Horde of Koth.

They turned their horses up along a gentle rise leading to the first of the terraced gardens. Bounding out of her tent to greet them—Gar’Ath in particular—was one of the most beautiful women Erg’Ran knew. Her name was Mitan, and Mitan was K’Ur’Mir. Rightwise, the long-haired girl had the magic, but she was a warrior to the bone. Mitan was clad in brown leather the color of her hair, jerkin and a skirt, the skirt barely long enough to be called one.

Her arms were bare, legs bare above turned-down knee boots. The cured pelt of a bar’de’gri was draped from one shoulder over her back, cinched between her breasts with a length of slender chain.

Erg’Ran took his old eyes from Mitan and cast a glance toward Gar’Ath. Gar’Ath’s face was flushed, his eyes nervously flickering from side to side, trying to avoid contact with the liquid blue eyes staring up at him.

“Gar’Ath! Erg’Ran! Was there, indeed, a great and memorable battle?”

“We could have used your swordarm with us, fair one, and your smile!” Erg’Ran told her honestly. He felt a grin cross his lips as he looked over at Gar’Ath riding beside him. “Isn’t that true, Gar’Ath?”

“Yes.” And Gar’Ath’s mount sprang ahead at his urging.

Erg’Ran looked down at Mitan. Hands on her waist, magnificent mane of hair tossed back, she was laughing. Erg’Ran shrugged his eyebrows. “Persist, girl!”

“That I will, old friend!”

“To be young again,” Erg’Ran murmured, riding on. Beside Gar’Ath once again, their horses climbed to the first terrace. Behind them they heard the crowd call out epithets to the Sword of Koth prisoner who rode at the column’s center.

Ahead of them lay the old summer palace, visible in its full glory at last.

It was, in fact, a castle of considerable size and, in the old days, great glory.

In its construction, the castle followed the contours of the rolling hill on which it was set, the series of outer walls deceptively low by comparison to the overall height of the keep within.

Each wall rose some seventy spans high, surmounted by defensive positions at the very top, below these well-designed arrow slits on a suspended walkway. The walkway was cut from the same stone as he walls and the upper defensive positions, thus reinforcing the wall’s strength.

Each wall was constructed in the same manner and there were three successive walls ringing the keep.

In the days before the coming of Mir, and long before the old summer palace was enchanted, many a deadly battle was fought on the beaches leading up from Woroc’Il’Lod’s frigid surf, or taken before the walls. Yet, never had the walls been breached.

The walls stood as they always had, but their presence was unnecessary to the summer palace’s defense.

Flowers, in as profusive extravagance and diversity of passionate color as one could wish, lay in unconstrained beds everywhere along the first terrace, abutting the pathway along which they rode and mounting toward the second terrace onto which they’d shortly climb their horses.

Erg’Ran shrugged his shoulders out of his heavy cloak, draping it across the pommel of his saddle. The air was pleasantly warm, perfect, just as it always was. The thinnest wisps of cloud floated within an otherwise flawless blue sky. Birds soared effortlessly overhead.

Erg’Ran and Gar’Ath led the dwindling column onto the second terrace. The cascade of flowers flowed past widely spaced trees, towering Ka’B’Oos, slender pines and graceful willows, their perfect order overwhelming in its simplicity. A few pavilions were erected on the second terrace green, the command tent among them. Bin’Ah would bring the Sword of Koth prisoner there. Despite the interrogation in store for him, the villain would be unharmed. Had Erg’Ran or any of the others wished otherwise, such would have been impossible on these grounds.

They ascended to the third terrace, the outermost of the three walls on one side, the lower terraces and the encampment on the other. The terrace terminated abruptly. Gar’Ath slowed his mount and Erg’Ran rode ahead, guiding his horse with a gentle tug of the off rein, turning the animal into the narrow throat which was the only means by which to enter the keep.

Erg’Ran passed the first wall. Had guards been needed here, they would have commanded the narrow passageway easily. It was said that a handful of determined warriors could fend off an army from these walls, and in antiquity such might well have been the case.

The tattoo of steel shod hooves against flagstone would last but briefly, as Erg’Ran and Gar’Ath were all who remained of the column.

Past the third wall, they reined in at the entrance to the courtyard. Gar’Ath swung a leg over his pommel and hopped down. Erg’Ran dismounted, but with considerably less grace and greater effort. He began to walk, carefully, leading his mount behind him. The flagstones, as with any uneven surface, played havoc with his peg leg, making it easy to trip.