Almost crying from the pain of his punctured tongue, Candlemas hobbled down the ramp. Outside were trees with broken branches and shed leaves, for they'd crashed in the forest. The pudgy mage saw sergeants kicking, hoisting, and slapping the stumbling soldiers into line, ordering the hale ones to stop whimpering and bandage their comrades. The puking, crying officers they simply ignored. Spitting blood, Candlemas looked to see whom he could help.
Screams. A charred smell of scorched flesh filled the air, an autumnal whiff of burning leaves. There was nothing to see, but soldiers died where they clustered. Barely visible heat ripples tickled the air as men and women felt their clothes, then their skin and hair, ignite. Painted K's on their breastplates curled and smoked, then each person became a ball of writhing flame, then a melting pool of blackened fat.
The heat ray, the mage knew. Firing from Ioulaum on high. Someone up there didn't know this war was only supposed to be a game.
The broken wooden hull beside him smoked and burst into flame. Men and officers died like flies under a burning glass. Candlemas stuck out a hand, latched onto a screaming soldier's shoulder, flicked his hand in the air along with a chant, and shifted.
Now he and the boy stood at the edge of the forest with grain fields running away from their feet toward a central road. High in the sky, at opposite ends of the valley, floated the sister cities. A quarter of a mile up in the woods, flames marked the destruction of the troop landing. In a rye field another ship landed successfully, and soldiers ran helter-skelter for cover behind rock walls, ignoring the shouts of their sergeants. The crew manning the troop ship waved frantically to lift before the heat ray found them.
Leaving the soldier to join his comrades, Candlemas aimed, shifted himself alongside the ship just before the landing ramp was hauled up. "Wait! Wait for me!" A brawny arm caught him by the tunic, hoisted him aboard to drop on bis face in the bottom of the empty ship.
All the way back, he kept his fingers crossed lest the heat ray strike them, all the while praying to Amaunator, Keeper of the Sun. If he got back safe, he promised, he'd drop a year's wages into the temple coffers, and never fly again.
Wulgreth gave a shout and hurled at Sunbright the first thing that came to hand. In this case, Knucklebones.
One hand entwined in her short dark hair, he caught her by the neck, grunted, and flung her. She gave a shriek of fright, terrified her neck would snap, then flew through the air like a rag doll.
But she slowed in midair, hung suspended, then gradually drifted to earth near the sundered campfire.
Sunbright helped her rise. His brawny hand caught her small, calloused one, and she felt a queer thrill run through her breast that had nothing to do with magic.
"How did you-what was-"
"Feather fall," Sunbright answered. "I thought of goose down and applied its magic to you, and the spell took. I don't know how I did it."
Standing, leaning on his arm, Knucklebones noticed something odd. This was the real man, returned alive and well, but his face, eyes, skin, and fingernails all glowed with a bright green tinge. It reminded her of the first blush of leaves in the emperor's park. He looked like a paper lantern lit from the inside, bright as any campfire.
"What's this glow?"
"Nature magic," he said simply. "I'm infused with it. I don't think the effect will last, but it should keep us alive. Watch out!"
Wulgreth's tribe, exhausted by their debauchery and night of torture, had crawled from their huts and grabbed up crude stone and iron weapons. They ran to the edge of the fire circle, then stopped and stared. One man pointed a seven-fingered hand at Sunbright and grunted. Children hid behind their parent's legs.
The man they'd tortured to death had returned as an avenging angel.
Only the magic-user was not awed. Wulgreth let out a bellow, snatched Knucklebones's black knife from his belt, and charged.
Several things happened at once, too fast for the thief to follow.
The black knife disappeared from Wulgreth's hand and appeared in Knucklebones's. Blinked there, obviously, by the will of Sunbright. At the same time, the barbarian drew his sword, and Harvester of Blood had never shone more brilliantly. Light flashed from the blade like a sunrise. Suddenly empty-handed, Wulgreth snatched up a log as thick as a man's leg from the fire pit, but that limb too was spelled. As Wulgreth swung it overhand to crush Sunbright's skull, the barbarian stroked his hand in the air, aiming for the log. Wulgreth lost his grip as the log aged a hundred years in seconds, snapped, crumbled to punk, and rained down as splinters and dust.
Waving empty hands, Wulgreth charged with brute strength and blind fury. Brushing Knucklebones gently aside, Sunbright reached over his head, then skipped back.
Immediately there came a snap and creak, then a groan as dirt and roots ripped and popped as if caught in a hurricane. A long shape loomed over Knucklebones's head, then a crash jarred her to her knees. Dust and cinders whirled around, stinging her eyes, tickling her nose and making her snort. Sunbright carefully lifted and propped her up, and made an idle swipe with Harvester. A giant branch hung over their heads to trap them in a leafy prison, but the keen sword lopped it off so they could pass.
Knucklebones rubbed her eyes and stared. "Wh-What-" she stammered. "What happened?"
"I pulled down a tree," Sunbright said simply. "It was diseased, and can return to the soil faster this way."
She stared. Smack across the center of the camp lay a tree that been leaning to one side. Sunbright had merely gestured, and brought the thing toppling like a dying forest god.
Now he waggled Harvester so the gleaming blade bobbed in the air. He was calm as an oak tree himself, despite the fact that they were surrounded by enemies. Knucklebones wondered at his calm air of certainty and lack of fear.
She breathed, "You've changed!"
"Yes." he agreed. "I'm a shaman." He smiled, and even his teeth radiated light, so she was reminded again of a paper lantern. "Finally."
Thrown off-balance, stunned by the magical attack, and trapped by the intervening tree, Wulgreth howled in rage and indignation, leaped into the air to crash down on packed dirt, beat his chest like an ape, and hollered his fury. His great hooked hands flexed as he ripped his lizard skin costume from his breast. Sunbright waited, unmoved and unafraid. Knucklebones clutched her familiar knife and crouched behind the newly-risen shaman.
Sense overcoming fury, Wulgreth saw that his antics didn't frighten his opponent, and quit. Instead, he stooped and latched onto a great rock with his craggy hands, grunted, and hoisted it high over his head.
Knucklebones shrieked, but Sunbright only snapped his fingertips together. The boulder burst into dust, like the tree limb, aged eons in less than a second. It spattered into dust around Wulgreth's head.
The lich lord stood stunned, blinking grit from his stone dead eyes. His followers oohed and aahed at the display, marveling that Sunbright could so oppose their invincible leader.
Knucklebones trembled. "We should flee," she told him. "If you can use magic, you could shift us far away, can't you?"
"No." Sunbright didn't look at her as he spoke, but watched his opponent. "I owe the land here for my salvation. I must repay her, make repairs as I can." He cast about at the dark woods, as if they were more important than a mere battle.
Talk of repaying the land sounded like mystic mumbo-jumbo to the thief, the vague mutterings of a priest cadging offerings. But she said nothing, only waited to see what he-and Wulgreth-would do.