The Towers Of the Sunset (24 page)

“HE’S IN THE Duke’s keep at Vergren,” Hartor tells the High Wizard.

“How do you know? Your usual sources?”

The heavy man grins across the table. “Gold sometimes works better than chaos or order. Korweil is as nervous as an unfledged vulcrow.”

The High Wizard nods knowingly. “I assume that you’re doing what you can to make the Duke even more nervous.”

“We did make sure that he knows about the
Marshall’s recall of her troops in Suthya. Pointing out that Westwind comes first, always.”

“What about Creslin himself?”

“We’ve let it be known that he killed an entire bandit troop.”

“Don’t exaggerate, Hartor.”

“Well…” temporizes the heavy man. “Only one of the seven escaped, and Creslin apparently killed Frosee personally and took his horse.”

“You didn’t ever mention that.”

“We didn’t know it until after he escaped.”

“That brings up another question.” The High Wizard frowns. “What about the troop on the way into Montgren?”

“Was that his doing?”

“Probably not. I doubt that he’s mastered that level of work. It has to have been Klerris and that healer, Lydya. They got him out of the road camp. Both of them are gone, and Klerris fired his home-using oil, so there were some traces. Nothing useful, unfortunately, except some indications that they’re headed west, back to the land of the precious Legend.”

The heavy man inclines his head toward the mirror on the tabletop. “There’s more here than your mirror shows. Are you sure that Klerris went west?”

“No. But there’s nothing he can do here. Or in Montgren. Order has never been able to stand up to us in a direct battle.”

“That may be.” Hartor licks his lips briefly with a tongue too small for his broad face. “How long before we can move against the Blacks?”

The High Wizard smiles coldly. “I doubt that we’ll need to. Most of them should leave of their own accord. Those who don’t-”

“You’re cold, Jenred. Cold as the poles.”

Jenred nods vaguely, his mind still on the escaped heir of Westwind. “You’d better send a full White, somebody like Bortren, and two full troops from Certis.”

“Creslin will be riding only with her and four second-rate Spidlarians.”

“I can’t believe that the White bitch hasn’t taught him something, and he did destroy seven before he knew what he was doing… if you got the story right.”

“I’ll send Bortren. But that’s a bit much, I think. Besides, where could they go anyway? To Reduce? To Hamor?”

“Reduce is no problem. Hamor might be. What if they put him in charge of their Legion training? Westwind has never let its training secrets be known. He went through all the courses.”

“Hmmm…”

The two exchange glances. Finally Hartor sighs and stands. His lips clamped tight, the High Wizard stares into the blank whiteness of the mirror on the table before him.

CRESLIN LOOKS TOWARD the pass, then back over his shoulder, although he has no need to do so since his senses show him the white mist that follows. Megaera shifts in her saddle. Behind them, the whiteness continues to pour from the road valley that twists its way back toward
Fairhaven.

One of the four blue-vested mercenaries accompanying them also looks back at the white cloud, then forward at the dust cloud that represents a Certan force sent directly from Jellico, according to the Duke’s spies.

Mixed with the white mist is the dust of a handful of horses, perhaps six or seven. One of the riders has to be a wizard of sorts.

“I can feel them,” Megaera affirms.

“You can? I thought-”

“It’s partly through you and partly on my own.”

Creslin wonders how many of the talents that he and Megaera possess are inborn and how many come from the knowledge that such powers are possible. Those in white behind him could inform him, but neither he nor Megaera would survive the informing. His left hand strays toward his shoulder, toward the short sword there in the shoulder harness.

“Ser… ?” asks the thin soldier who is the leader of the mercenary guards accompanying Megaera.

“Yes,” she answers.

“We’re not-”

“Hired for pitched battles. I know.”

Creslin briefly seizes the winds and throws his senses ahead. Then he turns to Megaera. “There is a pile of broken boulders about a kay ahead and two hundred cubits north of the road. Can you use whatever you have to hold off that cavalry troop-if they get here?”

“And you’re going to play hero and dispatch the wizard?”

Creslin tightens his lips. “I’m not a hero. I could use the winds and some fog to get us past the horsemen up ahead, but not with a wizard behind.”

“And I’m not good enough to go with you?”

“No.”

“You’re being honest.”

Creslin turns the chestnut back toward the white mist and the wizard that the whiteness contains. “I’ve never had much choice.”

“One way or another, you’ll be the death of me.”

“We can discuss that later.”

“If there is a later. Take care.”

“Thank you. And there will be,” he adds in affirmation as he nudges the chestnut toward the troop from
Fairhaven, now less than two kays away. As he rides, he begins to gather the winds to him, especially the colder winds from high above, the winds that sweep to the west and dust the Roof of the World.

“… just one rider.”

“… sent us after one man…”

Creslin narrows the distance between himself and the party from
Fairhaven. Six white armored and white-clad road guards preceding the wizard reach for their blades.

“Here he comes!”

“Idiot!”

Creslin concentrates upon melding wind and water and the chill of a thunderstorm, trying to replicate the conditions he had created outside Perndor, although his sword finds its way to his hand as he bears down upon the White guards.

The blinding chill of a wall of ice-bolts lashes the three front riders, and his sword finds no resistance.

Essttt…

Fires flare around Creslin as he drives toward the fourth rider, but the winds carry him through the flames. His blade strikes once, and again.

“No… demon…”

Another flare of white sheets around him, around the shield of the winds he has woven, even while his sword sweeps under the fifth guard’s arm and strikes.

“Uggmm…”

And the winds whip toward the White Wizard, where winds, fires, and cold iron meet. The iron triumphs.

Creslin reins up just in time to see the last guard spur his horse back toward
Fairhaven… and to lean over himself.

“Uuugghhh…” His guts turn themselves inside out.

Wheee… eeee… The chestnut skitters, but Creslin ignores the mount as the tears stream from his eyes and he continues to puke from the saddle. Hammers pound through his skull, and he ignores the six bodies on the ground, three of them shrouded in slowly melting ice and three of them bearing dull red incisions. Overhead, the dark clouds mount.

Finally he straightens and turns the chestnut toward the pass from which the Certan cavalry is emerging. He still shivers by the time he nears the bouldered hillock where the mercenaries and Megaera wait.

Megaera glares at him. She is pale, he notes absently, and a few dunnish streaks dot the forelegs of the gray she rides.

“Sorry. I didn’t expect that,” he says.

Megaera makes no answer.

“Ser?” asks the head Spidlarian.

“You don’t have to worry about the wizard. Or his troops.”

The Spidlarian blanches.

The mounted troop, under the red-and-green banner of Certis, has reached the base of the hill on which the six wait.

“I think we need a storm,” Creslin observes.

“You’ll destroy the weather for months!” Megaera protests.

“Fine. Do you want to die right here? I can’t take on twenty armed men.”

“I count fifty.”

“Shit…” murmurs the youngest mercenary under his breath.

“No battles,” reminds the Spidlarian senior, his voice a shade more tense than before.

“Shut up.” Creslin checks his blade to see if he has cleaned it before sheathing it. He does not remember doing so, but the steel is cold and blue and clean. He replaces the blade even as his eyes, and the feelings behind them, seek the winds again, although winds of a different pattern of twisted air and moisture than those before.

A trumpet echoes in the mid-morning air, rings in Creslin’s ears, and vibrates copper-silver above the road less than a kay downhill, just before the squad leading the Certan horsemen.

Creslin swallows and grabs for the winds.

Whhssttt… weeehhsss…

His tunic threatens to tear away from his body.

“… shit… shit!” Creslin wonders if all mercenaries have such limited vocabularies as he wrestles with his soul and the lashes of the sky. Thick gray and swirling white clouds begin to build around them, and around the horsemen.

“… wizardry…”

“… didn’t say an air wizard…”

Creslin touches Megaera’s arm before their vision becomes nearly useless. “Rope. Twine.”

“Hold hands, reins, something-”

“No! I can’t!”

Creslin jerks back as one of the Spidlarians screams, claws at the cottony fog and spurs his mount toward the south, back toward the Vergren road.

Megaera reaches out, touches the wrist of the lead mercenary, tugs at his sleeve, and draws him and his mount closer. The other two mercenaries shiver in their saddles but follow Creslin, the redhead, and their leader.

“There’s one! They’re headed back!” a Certan horseman shouts.

The sound of hooves echo through the cottony fog.

“Watch it! Might be a trap!” another warns.

“… damned wizards!”

Creslin leads the way downhill and to the north, farther away from the road, wondering why the one Spidlarian panicked. The fog is certainly no worse than many blizzards he has weathered, and far less cold.

“… where are they?”

“… can you hear them?”

“… they’re north…”

“… I heard something over there…”

Slowly, slowly, his path guided by the winds and not by his eyes, Creslin picks his way around the fringe of the Cretan troop and toward the pass that cuts across the corner of Certis to the west before again twisting northward. He takes a deep breath, then reaches a bit farther, twisting and yanking even colder air into the clouds above, wincing as ice forms.

Threp… threp… threp… threp…

Most of the hailstones fall near the road.

“… demons…”

“… frigging captain. Ought to be here.”

Through the gloom and fog, Creslin can sense Megaera’s twisted smile even as he feels his legs shake, his eyes burn. He takes a deep breath, for they have not yet gone far enough.

A hand touches his wrist, and a sense of warmth flows into his body. It is Megaera, her mount’s flank nearly touching the chestnut’s. The weakness in his knees retreats, but they must continue to move onward. He releases the hail and takes another deep breath as he senses the walls of the pass begin to close on them.

“Where-” begins a mercenary.

“Shut up.” The iron-edged whisper is the redhead’s, not Creslin’s, but it has no less power because of the sex of the speaker.

Another kay passes slowly, and Creslin releases more winds as they climb upward and out of the fog. He looks back. The pass, and the valley onto which it opens, remains swathed in white, almost as white as the faces of the three mercenaries.

“Oh…”

Creslin’s body is nearly too tired to catch the redhead as she collapses across the neck of her mount. The two heavy packs behind her saddle hamper him as he tries to keep the horses together.

He swallows-realizing the cost of the warmth he had received-as he leans to support her partial weight, still attempting to keep the horses together for the moment and wishing that he knew how to return her favor.

She breathes, and he can only hope that her swoon is simple exhaustion. The Spidlarians help him move her in front of him, where he can hold her as they start downhill. His knees tremble, but he will not let her go, not when this may be one of the few times he can hold her.

He looks up and toward the lead mercenary. None of the three men meet his eyes, not even the one who takes the reins of Megaera’s mount. The now-riderless horse looks like a packhorse, with clothes and other items stacked behind the saddle.

As the five horses head down toward the
Sligo road, Creslin frowns. Why could he twist the winds the second time without the agony he felt after his first effort?

He looks up at the storm clouds marching in from the north, promising rain, cold rain, and takes a deep breath.

“HE BESTED BORTREN,” Hartor says with disbelief.

“Bortren was a fool. He should have just helped the Certans. Still, it’s hard to see how Creslin avoided two full troops on the
Sligo road.”

“Why don’t you ask the guard who came back? This was your idea, and now we’ve got two monsters on the loose.” He turns toward the doorway.

“Hartor.”

The other stops. “Yes, Jenred?”

“It was my idea. We also lost only five men and one wizard, not an entire army. If Bortren had listened, we would have had no losses and a far less obstreperous viscount in Jellico. You will also note that the Duke did not provide Creslin and Megaera with his own guards.”

Hartor’s face remains impassive.

“Get the guard,” Jenred orders. “Perhaps you should join the pursuit yourself to give greater importance to the effort.”

“I might… after you hear the guard.”

Hartor leaves, and Jenred waits as a young road guard trembles his way toward the table. The youth stops but does not look at the High Wizard.

“What happened?” Jenred demands.

“He… I don’t know, but somehow… I mean… Jekko and Beran and the new guy, they turned to ice… and the wind near threw us right off our mounts.” His voice is thin, stammering.

“What about the two others? And Bortren?”

“He killed them, with his sword. The wizard-our wizard, the one you called Bortren-he threw fire at the Storm Wizard, but it never even came close.”

The thin wizard frowns. “Real fire?”

“I could feel the heat.”

“Why did you… depart?”

“Because I was scared, Ser Wizard. Anything that kills five men and a wizard… I can’t stop it.”

“What happened after that?”

“The whole valley filled with fog. Then there was ice rain. They said it was there days later. I didn’t stay.”

“Well, you’re honest. You’ve at least seen this… Storm Wizard. Tell Hartor you’re going with the ship.”

“Hartor, ser?”

“The big wizard who called you here. You’ll be on the ship that sinks the Duke’s schooner. You’ll take a ship from Lydiar. That way we solve two problems.”

“Yes, ser.” The guard’s voice is flat, resigned.

The thin man in white ignores the tone.