The SteelMaster of Indwallin, Book 2 of The Gods Within (6 page)

Again Morddon shrugged. “They picked a fight, and I know of only one way to fight.”

“Is it that simple?” Gilguard asked. “From what I’ve seen you’re the best fighting man I’ve ever come across, though to look at you one would not know it—you look rather scrawny and underfed—but single-handed you take on seven of my best warriors, kill two and nearly kill the rest, and to you it’s just a brawl. Is it that you fight anyone you can, any place, any time, for any reason? Is it really that simple?”

Morddon shook his head. “Nothing’s that simple.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“I don’t care to.” Morddon looked at Metadan. “You’ve questioned the innkeeper? You know I was minding my own business, and it was not I who picked the fight?”

Metadan nodded without expression.

“Then I’m free to go?”

“You’re free to go,” Metadan said. “But go straight to the legion’s barracks. Tomorrow, at dawn, we leave for the wars.”

Morddon threw back his head and laughed. “Finally! Now I can have some peace.” And with that he brushed Gilguard aside and walked out of the cell.

Gilguard frowned, looked carefully at Metadan. “Going to war will bring him peace?” he asked, and his frown deepened.

Metadan nodded, though as always there was no expression on his face. “That one’s soul is a curiosity to me. And each time I meet him, my curiosity deepens.”

~~~

The voice, soft and gentle, was the only thing in Morgin’s universe, and even though exhaustion and fatigue threatened to devour him, he struggled onward, following it blindly in the vain hope of a respite from the constant battle within his heart.

“Morgin . . . Morgin . . . Morgin . . .”

Cautiously he opened his eyes, parted his lips and tried to swallow, but a coarse, gritty dust caked his mouth and throat. The sword!

As if his thoughts were a trigger the sword flared in his hands, lifted itself high over his head and screamed its hatred at him. He pulled at it with weary muscles, threw his own hatred at it and forced it to the floor where it bit into the stone and raised another shower of chips. Again it grew silent.

Fatigue clouded his mind, but he understood he was on his knees in the center of the Hall, with the sword gripped in both hands before him, trying to control it with no power.
How long?
he wondered.
How long have I held it so?

“Two days and nights,” Rhianne said softly.

He was glad for the sight of her, even if she was a hallucination.

She shook her head. “No. I am real.”

I’m sorry,
he thought, thinking of all the years of pain he had given her. He struggled constantly just to hold onto consciousness.

Rhianne shrugged. “We were both stupid, and for that we must both bear the blame.”

The words meant nothing to Morgin, and for some moments this beautiful girl kneeling before him was an unrecognizable stranger. The sword demanded too much of him. If his diligence failed for only an instant . . .

~~~

“Morgin . . . Morgin.”

Morgin opened his eyes again, looked again at the beautiful hallucination kneeling before him. In her right hand she held an empty sheath extended toward him. “Here,” she said. “It will be easier if you cage the beast.”

She was right. But how was he going to take hold of the sheath when he needed both hands to hold the sword’s hatred in check?

The beautiful hallucination turned the open end of the sheath toward him. “I will hold the sheath, but I’ll not touch that blade.”

Morgin looked down at the tip of the sword where it rested in the last gouge it had cut from the floor, then he looked at the distance between it and the open end of the sheath. It might as well have been the distance between heaven and hell, for all it mattered.

“You must do it now,” the hallucination said, “while you still have the strength.”

Morgin nodded, lifted the blade slowly from the floor, sensed the evil within it tensing for a struggle, but with his will he clamped down on it mercilessly and it subsided. He held the tip out toward the sheath, though it wavered unsteadily before him. But just when he could go no further the beautiful hallucination moved with lightning speed and slammed the open end of the sheath down over the blade with a loud metallic crash, and suddenly Morgin felt free again. He felt as if he had been carrying a great weight for many leagues, then someone had taken the weight from his shoulders, and now nothing mattered but sleep.

He let his shoulders slump toward the floor, prepared to curl up right there and sleep for a century, but a hand arced out of the midnight surrounding his soul and struck his face with enough force to rock him back on his haunches. His thoughts were as slow as winter honey, but the hand struck again, and again, and each time it stung more, until finally he saw Rhianne raise her hand to strike him a fourth time, and he raised his own hand to block the blow.

Rhianne hesitated, withheld the blow, looked at Morgin carefully. “Good. You’re lucid. You must stay that way. When you leave this Hall every major clansman in the Lesser Clans will be watching you, and you must appear to be in control.”

Morgin nodded. He understood her somewhat, but the fatigue was far too demanding. “Keep talking,” he said. “Don’t stop. It helps me stay anchored to this world. And let’s don’t waste any time.”

“Then get on your feet. Now.” Rhianne jumped to her feet, stood over him, helped him struggle to a standing position, though he had a tendency to stagger. “That won’t do,” she said. “You’ll have to stand straight, walk straight, look straight.”

“You sound like Olivia.”

Rhianne laughed as they started toward the doors of the Hall. “And you sound like me.”

They waited while the extra timbers were again removed from the doors, then one door creaked open no more than a miserable crack. Morgin thought of Morddon, and decided the angry Benesh’ere’s harshness might act to his advantage here. So with the last bit of strength he possessed he put a shoulder to the door, pushed hard, and at the same time growled, “Out of my way before I lose my temper.” He shoved the door well open and stepped out among the waiting clansmen, who in turn stepped fearfully away from him. He looked at them carefully, as they all looked at him suspiciously. “Well?” he demanded. “What are you looking at?”

All of them but Olivia stepped back a pace, while she stood her ground and looked through him as if she understood well the game he played. But she did not interfere.

“Of course I look like hell,” he growled at them, and like sheep they stepped back again. “I haven’t had any food or sleep for two days, a situation which I intend to remedy shortly.”

He started walking with long great strides, approaching the impenetrable wall of the crowd as if he would walk right over any who stood in his way, and the crowd parted fearfully. All the way to his apartments he did not look back, though he knew Rhianne was close behind him and in his heart he thanked her for that again and again. But just before he reached his rooms his legs gave way beneath him. Rhianne stepped around him quickly, and pretending to be an obedient cow of a wife, she opened the door and held it for him, saying only, “My lord.”

He walked past her on trembling legs, barely managed to get to his bed before passing out.

Chapter 4: The Outlaw

Morddon awoke long before dawn on the morning of his departure from Kathbeyanne, though with the exception of a single angel sitting on the cot next to his, he was alone in the barracks of the First Legion. He often wondered if any of the damn angels ever slept, which reminded Morgin of his own thoughts concerning Ellowyn that seemed so long ago, but, from the perspective of this dream, was actually still in the distant future. As he wiped the sleep from his eyes the angel sitting on the cot nearby said, “You are to follow me, Benesh’ere.”

Morddon nodded, reached under his cot and retrieved a long, thin, gray canvas sack, about the length of an ordinary man, though considerably shorter than his own Benesh’ere frame, and beneath the stiff canvas his hands sensed the shape of the most powerful of the Benesh’ere weapons: the longbow. Fashioning the bow had been the only worthwhile thing he’d done during his weeks in Kathbeyanne, and it and his sword were now his only permanent possessions.

The angel led him to a large staging area well outside the walls of the city where thousands of men and horses and hundreds of supply wagons were gathered. They went directly to a temporary corral in which several hundred horses had been penned. “Choose your own mount,” the angel said, and without another word he turned and walked away.

Morddon leaned on one of the beams of the corral and shook his head sadly. “Damn angels!” he muttered, closing his eyes and running his fingers through his knotted and unkempt hair. He opened his eyes just in time to see a tall black mare separate herself from the jostling mass of beasts in the corral and trot his way. She was coal black, without a single feature to mark her coat, and as she approached Morgin sensed a familiar magic about her, and he instantly recognized Mortiss. She trotted up to him, snorted derisively as if to remind him what a fool he could be, and waited impatiently for him to saddle and ride her.

That first morning out of Kathbeyanne, riding with the First Legion of Angels, Morddon’s heart soared with joy like a prisoner freed after many years in a dark and deep dungeon. It turned Morgin’s stomach to see the Benesh’ere ride so joyfully to war, and to feel that joy himself. But the joyful sense of freedom died quickly in the choking dust of several thousand horses, and as the leagues passed beneath Mortiss’ hooves Morgin noticed that the closer Morddon got to the wars the more he managed to relax, to put the tension and the hatred behind him, and to view life without the harsh edges of his bitterness. Morgin, however, plagued with Morddon’s memories of many years of slaughter, and his own memories of Csairne Glen, grew morose and fearful of the days to come.

He was part of a combined force of the first four legions of angels, two full companies of Benesh’ere, one company of mercenaries, and a flight of about one hundred of the black, winged griffins. As a common soldier Morddon’s only responsibilities were to take care of his horse and weapons, and to keep up with the general pace of the march. And since his riding companions were angels of the First Legion, all of whom he found inhumanly boring, he was left to himself for the most part, which suited him nicely.

On the eighth day out of Kathbeyanne he awoke at sunrise, used a small portion of his water ration to shave and wash—as they approached the wars he was beginning to pay attention to his personal appearance again—rolled up his kit, and to kill time before his breakfast ration he left the camp, found a small, clear hillock some distance from the outer perimeter, and began a series of stretching exercises he used when a real workout was not possible. With his sword drawn, and his eyes closed, he concentrated on each muscle carefully, extending it, then contracting it, until he felt the knots and tension relax. He must now prepare his body for the battles and the warring that would soon come, and he drifted slowly into a mild state of self-hypnosis at the pleasure that came with Morddon’s knowledge and control of his body.

“Harrumph! Um . . . excuse me.”

At the sound of the voice Morddon froze, then after many seconds opened his eyes. A young Benesh’ere lad stood cautiously in front of him. Morddon spoke softly, “What do you want, boy?”

The boy frowned, obviously thinking of the stories he’d heard of the maniac that towered over him. “You’re Lord Morddon, are you not?”

“I am Morddon, but I’m no lord. And who are you?”

“I am WindHollow,” the boy said.

Morddon nodded. “A powerful name that. What do you want with me, WindHollow?”

“I was told by the warmasters Metadan and Gilguard to bring you to them.” The boy stood uncertainly, as if Morddon might burst into a murderous rage at any moment.

Morddon tried not to smile, but he failed. He sheathed his sword. “Then lead the way.”

Near the tents at the center of camp several men and angels and one woman were leaning over a table full of maps, while not far to one side two of the black griffins sat quietly on their haunches. Even from a distance Morddon recognized one as TarnThane himself, the Griffin Lord, for the strange winged beasts were massive towers of taloned might. Closer yet, he saw gathered about the table Gilguard and two of his lieutenants, the Benesh’ere princess AnneRhianne, Metadan and two archangels whom Morddon did not recognize, plus Ellowyn, though weeks earlier Morgin had learned she didn’t recognize him.

Morddon and WindHollow stopped near the group at the map table and waited silently for the ongoing conversation to cease. TarnThane was giving a scouting report: “. . . Most of the countryside is unoccupied. We saw no sign of the Goath, but we caught an occasional glimpse of the hounds.”

Several of them started at that. “In large numbers?” Metadan asked.

TarnThane shook his head. “No. Just a few. Probably scouts.”

Metadan considered that carefully. “I wonder if WolfDane himself is considering some action against the Goath.”

Morddon had heard of the hellhounds, and their king WolfDane, but he himself had never seen one. They were reputed to be giant hounds as large as a horse, with jaws that could snap a man in two. Legend had it they had escaped from the netherhells when Beayaegoath was first exiled there, and had never stopped fighting against the hordes he commanded. But they shunned man and all things of mankind, and they fought their own battles against the Goath, refusing to work in any way with the mortal forces fighting their common enemy. Morddon had heard a story that Metadan had once saved WolfDane’s life, but no one knew if there was any truth to it.

“If the hounds intend an attack upon the Goath,” Gilguard said thoughtfully, “I would dearly like to know where and when.” He looked at Metadan. “Is there any chance you could get them to work with us. If they would trust any of us, it would be you.”

Metadan shook his head. “It’s not a matter of trust. Their ways are just too different from ours. We’ll have to depend on our griffin friends here.”

TarnThane threw his head back. “And we need someone working with us from the ground.”

At that Metadan turned to Morddon, nodded for him to come forward. He did so, and politely greeted the group assembled at the map table, and as a formality he apologized for being absent when they needed him.

“Polite words?” AnneRhianne asked sarcastically. “And an apology? And all in the space of a single sentence! And he’s shaved, and washed! I begin to believe you, Metadan, when you say he is a changed man.”

Morddon stifled an angry retort.

“Now I want no arguments here,” Metadan said carefully, looking at each of them, “unless you’re arguing the business at hand. This is a council of war, and we have decisions to make.”

“Why am I here?” Morddon asked, “A common soldier among such hallowed company?”

The griffin TarnThane spoke with a hearty laugh. “Because you’re not that common, my sad Benesh’ere friend.”

Morddon kept his eyes on Metadan. “What does he mean by that?”

Metadan answered with a question. “How long have you been fighting in the wars?”

Morddon shrugged. “Better than twelve years.”

“And how old are you?”

“I’ve seen twenty-four summers. But we’ve been through this before so what’s the point?”

“From childhood to manhood,” the griffin cried sorrowfully, “with no boyhood between. Ahhh! A hard life indeed!”

“No breaks?” Metadan asked. “Fighting for twelve years without rest?”

Morddon shook his head and wondered at all the questions. “A day or two here and there. Sometimes more. This last stretch in Kathbeyanne was the longest I’ve ever been away. Why?”

Metadan nodded. “As near as we can tell, you have more experience out here than anyone among us. When I question the more experienced commanders, and jog their memories a little, not one of them can remember a time when you weren’t out here, though they remember you only because of your longevity and not because of any great deeds. And AuelThane there—” Metadan indicated with his hand the griffin perched next to TarnThane, “—tells us you scout these hills with such stealth not even the griffins can spot you from the air, even if they know you’re down there somewhere.”

Morddon nodded, remembering the other griffin now from battles past, and how he’d used Morgin’s shadowmagic through the years to conceal his position from his enemies, and apparently from his allies too. Sharing such memories reminded Morgin he’d always been a part of this dream, and that, he did not like. “What do you want of me?” Morddon asked the archangel.

“Your knowledge of these hills,” Metadan said, stabbing a finger into the map on the table. “I could use a scout with your abilities. Would that suit you?”

Morddon nodded. “I like working alone.”

The archangel smiled. “I thought you might.”

“What is this?” AnneRhianne demanded. “A mercenary accepting extra duties without demanding additional pay? I don’t believe my ears.”

Gilguard grinned, though he turned his face aside to conceal it. But Morddon could not hide his own anger as he looked at the tall Benesh’ere princess, and Morgin kept wanting to call her Rhi. “I hadn’t really thought of it that way, Your Highness,” Morddon said to her, then grinned. “But now that you mention it I should be paid more.”

“Fine,” Metadan said. “You can have whatever you want. I really don’t care about the gold.”

“No,” Morddon said flatly. “I won’t hire out to you as a scout. Our agreement was for one year of my services as a common soldier, nothing more.”

Metadan actually frowned, the first expression Morddon had ever seen on the angel’s face. Metadan shook his head. “But I thought you said—”

Morddon interrupted him, pointed at AnneRhianne, “If you want me as a scout then she must hire me, and she must pay me, with coins from her own purse, and by her own hand.”

If there were any color in the white of a Benesh’ere face, it disappeared from AnneRhianne’s in that moment. “Never,” she shouted.

TarnThane crowed with laughter. “You thought he had no pride, my princess.”

“Shut your beak,” she shouted at the griffin, though even Gilguard saw the irony in Morddon’s demand and his grin widened. “Wipe that grin off your face,” she shouted at him.

“If you won’t pay me,” Morddon said, “then your sharp tongue has cost this army the best scout it could have had, for there are no other circumstances under which I will accept.”

AnneRhianne was ready to explode, but with a visible effort she controlled herself. She looked at Morddon closely, and when she realized he would not yield, she demanded, “Very well, what’s your price, mercenary? Another gold coin for your purse?”

Morddon smiled and shook his head. “No. One small copper coin, to be paid to me each day, and by your own hand. And when I am out of the camp, and unavailable, you will hold the coins for my return. But remember, it is you who must seek me out, and you who must pay me.”

Her eyes narrowed further at the added insult of such a small price. “It appears I have no choice,” she said. “I agree. And now that we have a bargain, mercenary, never doubt that I will keep my end of it. Just see that you keep yours.” She looked at Metadan. “Am I required further, my lord?”

Metadan shook his head. “You may go.”

She looked once more at Morddon, and the hatred he saw in her eyes saddened him.

~~~

AnnaRail’s attention drifted away from the heated debate raging in the center of the Hall of Wills, and settled on the scarred and pitted walls that surrounded them all. The Hall had received only a cursory cleaning for this unprecedented extended session of the Lesser Council, and as yet no real repairs had been attempted. The magnitude of the destruction drew her eyes again and again away from the debate. It struck a cold shaft of fear into her heart, and served as a constant reminder to them of the topic of discussion.

Olivia and BlakeDown had argued through the afternoon and well into the night, though AnnaRail knew they’d soon settle the issue. But even though Morgin’s life hung in the balance, she stayed far back in the crowd and was careful to avoid participating in any way, for nothing she said would serve in his favor. Instead she waited quietly near an exit, ready to leave the instant she determined the battle was lost.

“He has endangered us all,” BlakeDown shouted at the top of his lungs, “Each and every one of us, and our families, and our kinsmen far from here, for he cannot control that beast he has brought into this world, and who can say what will stop it when it begins devouring the countryside? Certainly not I, and you all know I am a sorcerer of more than trifling power.”

BlakeDown paced back and forth in the middle of the Hall as he spoke, stopping occasionally to look fearfully at one of the stone pillars Morgin’s sword had whittled down to a splinter of rock. “All of us here have sensed the magnitude of its evil. We stood outside for two days while he fought it, and I grant you it was a valiant fight. But it was through his own stupidity such a power was allowed access to this world, and by his own admission he has lost his power, and he lays now in a stupor of fatigue and exhaustion with no remaining strength for the next battle we all know will come. So I can have no pity for the man. He has brought this fate upon himself, and now he must bear the responsibility for his actions.”